We shoot videos for local makers, no cost. Please contact ami@astros.co.za for more info.
-------
Copyright © 2018
Bates Trust IT003077/2015(G).
All rights reserved.
All materials contained on this website are the property of Bates Trust and are protected by South African and international copyright laws. All trademarks, service marks, trade names, trade dress, product names and logos appearing on the site are the property of their respective owners, including Bates Trust.
Engrave Image on Marble/Granite by Laser, Solution for Stone Texture/Colour/Pattern Difference
Have you ever wondered how images are engraved onto Marble and Granite? This process is actually pretty simple, when you have a CO2 Laser, for sale from AM.CO.ZA.
We start with the artwork in RDWorks. We have chosen a photo of Nelson Mandela. We need to add more shading and increase the dots per inch in the image so that it is visible on the surface of the stone. We use the RDWorks software to do this and the process can be followed in the video. When you zoom out and compare the edited version to the original, and they look similar, then you know you have done it correctly. When you zoom in, you should then see more dots per inch in the edited image. We then need to change the size, so that the correct size is engraved onto our stone. Next we need to adjust the speed and power of the job. We opt for a slower job, so that we don't go too fast and damage the stone but if we go too slow, we can crack the stone. We also don't want to too much power, as we will damage the stone. We also don't want to go to deep. So we adjust these settings so that we engrave on the stone with the desired result. Lastly, we need to save the file to a memory stick.
We are now ready to do the engraving on our CO2 Laser Machine. we insert the stick and press start to do the job. We realized that the job was not working, as there was not enough detail being transformed onto the stone, because there are more darker images in the images than whiter image, and this cause an issue because the engraving has a light background when engraving but the top surface is dark. So we inverted the image and we were able to get it right. We had to brighten the image because it was too dark, and this fixed the issue. We also changed the frequency and this made the engraving result much better. This shows you important it is to do tests and get your setting and image correct.