Laser

Why is this FAQ so much shorter than the others? Because I'm tired of writing FAQs, I've been doing it all moring. Plus, what is there to laser engraving. Bzzzzzt....you fire a laser at something a poof, it evaporates before your eyes

But really, that sounds kinda cool? Yeah, actually it is. You ought to come by and watch sometime

What can we zap with the laser?We can engrave wood, leather, marble, acrylic, anodized aluminum and sign materials. We can cut fabric, paper, cardboard, acrylic, think sheets of wood, and I bet we could cut and engrave chocolate, but I've never tried that.

How do you tell it where to cut or engrave? Sort of like a printer. We load the artwork into the software as single color. Anywhere that is white doesn't engrave, anywhere that is black does engrave.

So that's it, just one color? Yes and no, I was oversimplifying. If you engrave a piece of wood it will all engrave the same dark brown color. However, we can engrave to different depths or using special patterns to make photorealistic images in some substances like marble. Also we can fill areas with special paints or laser foils to make a more unique and colorful design.

You didn't mention glass, can you not engrave glass? Yes and no again. You can't "engrave" glass with a laser, but you can decorate it. The laser actually heats up tiny bubbles in the glass and makes them pop leaving white areas on the glass. Ironically imperfections are necessary for this to work so cheap glass works better than expensive glass. For particularly large or intricate designs on glass or crystal we recommend sand etching instead. We don't do it ourselves but can get it done for you.

I have an engraved stainless steel knife, how come you don't list metals as things you can engrave? Stainless steel and hard metals have to be rotary engraved (which we don't do). They use a diamond tipped tool to actually carve away material, not a super concentrated blast from a laser beam (our way is much cooler). The laser beam will have no effect on metal. In some cases it can discolor the metal, but that's not what you want.

But you listed aluminum. Last time I looked at my periodic table of the elements aluminum was listed as a metal. Good point, but I said anodized aluminum. Anodization puts a coat on the metal that is kind of like a paint. The laser just burns away the "painted" layer, leaving behind the shiny metal.

What are the artwork requirements for laser engraving?It really depends on what you're engraving. For logo work vector art is best, but sometimes we can use bitmaps. For photorealistic images a high resolution high contrast photo is best.

Are you going to have a cool polar bear fact in this FAQ like you do in all the rest? Since you insist. I'll throw out a couple of facts. Polar bears have been known to hunt whales. When trapped by ice storms the whales are sometimes limited to one or two breathing holes. The bears will pick one whale and attack it each time it surfaces until he is able to drag it out of the water. Though they have little competition in the wild, artcic foxes will attempt to harass and annoy a polar bear so much that the bear gives up on what it is trying to eat just to make the fox stop bothering it. Visit our links section and there is a link to a great organization that studies polar bears, and also to the NRDC which has a campaign going to help save the bears from the increasing threat of habitat loss.

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