Is there a trick to engraving with the paper film left on the Acrylic?

Lasers
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1

Is there a trick to engraving with the paper film left on the Acrylic? If I remove the paper I get a nice white engrave. If I leave the paper on the acrylic the engraving gets a brown color. I’m assuming from the burned paper leaving a dirty color to the engrave.

I’m running a 60w with air assist with LightBurn. 30% power at 200 mm/sec. It’s funny cus I didn’t have this problem with the 40w using LaserWeb. scratches head

2

hmm… Maybe instead I should start masking off my acrylic with that white transfer paper used with Vinyl cutters. I know that was a trick I had been shown at TechShop (man, I can’t believe they went under)

3

try using some liquid soap to leave a film before engraving without the paper. Then rinse the parts afterwards, it seems to help some.

4

I use blue tape.

5

@HalfNormal where do you buy the blue tape? I can’t find it locally here in my country…

6

The blue tape is used to mask for painting. It’s just a higher quality than regular brown masking tape. I am sure you might be able to find something where you’re at and if not the 3M brand I find is the best.

7

This white transfer paper came in today. Hopefully it works. Then I’ll hunt down a cheaper supplier.

UPDATE: deleted link. This paper is used for tracing designs from paper to a new surface. Doh. Not the tacking stuff used in vinyl. Fail.

8

@HalfNormal I tryed many types of masking tapes, but all of them left so many residue on the acrylic after engraving. Blue tape is the only one that my local stores don’t have ( and most of them didn’t know about it…)

9

Took a bit, but I found the issue. My compressor was pushing too much air at the nozzle. So now I have the air flow at the very low end and I’m engraving on cast acrylic with paper backing much much better