Hello Brian, Here are my two cents: 1) You said that you were using the same laser settings for all the three samples, if I got it right. Well, I would further play with these settings, using larger pieces of wood and printing more greyscale patterns side to side on the same piece with different settings to compare the difference. As you can see from your samples, some parts are just engraved, some deeply etched instead. 2) Working on wood, it is not always true that the higher image resolution the better. I would try to lower the line-per-inch resolution, and/or preprocess the image by playing with the dithering/rasterization/halftoning options of your software (there are some who include specific wood settings like ImagR if you do a Google search) and again printing more side to side tests. 3) I would avoid woods with too evident veins, since the variations in wood's structure do react to laser in different ways. I would try not birch, but well-dried beech or maple instead, if you can find some. 4) Wood composites, like plywood, are so changing from one kind to other, and their texture too unpredictable to get consistent results in my opinion. Best regards, and greetings from Italy! Roberto
Hi Roberto, Thank you for your comprehensive answer. I really appreciate this. Purely for this video, which is about the differences in wood types, I used the same settings for different samples of wood. Normally I would set up a test for a certain type of wood with different engraving and cutting parameters to see which parameter is best for a certain type of material. As for the photo resolution, I know. I usually use a slightly lower DPI setting and I combine that with a slightly larger distance from the laser than the normal focus distance. This usually gives a somewhat darker engraving, better than if I used the normal focus distance. Wood with a beautiful grain can sometimes lead to very nice results, but sometimes it is also a drama. composition wood, such as plywood, is almost never reliable, although I have achieved very nice results on MDF. Thanks again for the comprehensive answer. Greetings from the Netherlands and see you next time.
Hello Brian,
Here are my two cents:
1) You said that you were using the same laser settings for all the three samples, if I got it right.
Well, I would further play with these settings, using larger pieces of wood and printing more greyscale patterns side to side on the same piece with different settings to compare the difference. As you can see from your samples, some parts are just engraved, some deeply etched instead.
2) Working on wood, it is not always true that the higher image resolution the better. I would try to lower the line-per-inch resolution, and/or preprocess the image by playing with the dithering/rasterization/halftoning options of your software (there are some who include specific wood settings like ImagR if you do a Google search) and again printing more side to side tests.
3) I would avoid woods with too evident veins, since the variations in wood's structure do react to laser in different ways. I would try not birch, but well-dried beech or maple instead, if you can find some.
4) Wood composites, like plywood, are so changing from one kind to other, and their texture too unpredictable to get consistent results in my opinion.
Best regards, and greetings from Italy!
Roberto
Hi Roberto,
Thank you for your comprehensive answer. I really appreciate this.
Purely for this video, which is about the differences in wood types, I used the same settings for different samples of wood. Normally I would set up a test for a certain type of wood with different engraving and cutting parameters to see which parameter is best for a certain type of material.
As for the photo resolution, I know. I usually use a slightly lower DPI setting and I combine that with a slightly larger distance from the laser than the normal focus distance. This usually gives a somewhat darker engraving, better than if I used the normal focus distance.
Wood with a beautiful grain can sometimes lead to very nice results, but sometimes it is also a drama. composition wood, such as plywood, is almost never reliable, although I have achieved very nice results on MDF.
Thanks again for the comprehensive answer. Greetings from the Netherlands and see you next time.
I like 1. Birch is not easy to get in Australia. In fact wood for hobby engraving or CNC is not that easy to find here.
Foto 1😂