Doing a project for a relative and decide to try this random piece of

Doing a project for a relative and decide to try this random piece of 1/8" Ash I had picked up from the scrap bin of my local hardwood dealer. Now I can see why nobody uses ash for laser engraving :stuck_out_tongue: The darker summer wood grain lasers dark while the lighter spring wood grain basically stays the same. Going with my first choice of Cherry, but thought I would share in case anyone was wondering about using Ash. :slight_smile:

Yup, tried it last year on something and gave up instantly. Now Cherry … how well does that cut and engrave? I’ve been meaning to try cutting some 1/8" but it can be an expensive test. One 12x24" sheet 1/8" thick sheet costs a little over $18 …

Oh, regular K40 tube …

Oh, Cherry works great.

Easy single pass cutting?

Yes, I cut this 1/8" piece at 9mm/s with 41% (~11ma) power. Probably could have gone a little faster or lower power.

Cool. Gives me reason to go ahead and buy a sheet to play with.

I have some ash scraps in my shop I was going to experiment with. I sort of figured it would do this.

Looks like your cuts are straight, I almost thought it might make a wavy cut from the density difference, but I guess the laser is too focused for that.

Yeah, the ash actually cut just as well as the cherry. Ash would probably be good for making things if all you were doing was cutting.

@TwelveFoot since you are going to try Ash, I’m curious if you could try using a picture of the wood as a mask to even out the engraving.
My thinking is take a picture, use Gimp to threshold the image and use that to set up maybe a dual pass engraving to make a more even colored engraving.

The amount of time spent trying to get that lined up properly is likely not worth it. But I’d say it’s not impossible to do.

@Ashley_M_Kirchner_No if you had a small bit of extra space on both sides of the material, you should be able to engrave a single line between two dark patches and adjust as needed?

If you have the material handy, try it, and see how well it works. As I said, it’s possible, just takes fidgeting.

I wish I had a laser. :frowning:

Isn’t it time to stop wishing and jump in with both feet?

Next time I have spare cash.

What is this “spare” cash you speak of?? And where can I find it?

It is difficult to explain. I don’t have any currently to have a reference. :slight_smile: