How color laser engraving? Help

Hi. I’m new in the forum.

I am investigating how to add acrylic paint to my laser engravings on plastic materials (nylon pa12). I am very new to this and I am looking for techniques and materials through YouTube but I do not find many applications for plastic.

I had thought of using Henves paint to apply the laser on this paint, or use acrylic paint with a water base to apply with a brush or cloth once the engraving was done and then remove the excess of the unengraved part of the piece.

Somebody could help me?

Welcome Oscar,

The easiest way to add color post engraving is to first mask the material, engrave, paint and then remove the masking.

For masking I use Rtape Conform 4075RLA vinyl letter transfer tape. You can get it in a bunch of different widths.

I haven’t worked with nylon, but I have used acrylic paint on sheet acrylic. The masking I mentioned is also resistant to typical paint solvents so you would likely not be limited to water based paints.

Thanks for your answer, Nedman.

He had tried with bodybuilder tape but was damaging the pieces by trying to remove it with a cuter. Do you use any special tools to remove tape debris?

I use a high tack duct tape like black Gorilla Tape to do the “weeding” of the masking. With the vinyl transfer tape, which is a medium tack, I recommended the Gorilla Tape removes it fairly easily. Typically place a piece on top, press it down tight and slowly peel it back. If it’s not picking up all the masking pieces at once I usually use a peel and replace motion with my thumb as I slowly work the tape back.

You can also use tweezers to do the weeding but that’s slow. Or a cut vinyl pick tool.

I’ve been playing with these and they are working out really well.

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