The epilog's 3D mode will let you feed a "gray scale image" to the laser
and it will interpret WHITE as Don't Burn At All, BLACK as Burn Deepest
and shades of gray as percent of max power. So you can do "low relief
carving" - on both flat and curved surfaces.

The low relief carved surfaces get scortched. Harbor Freight sells an
"air eraser" - basically an airbrush that shoots aluminum oxide
abrassive instead of ink or paint. 200 or 400 grit al oxide is just
abrassive enough to remove the scortching with little change to the
"carving". At about $30 for it and another $6 for about a quart of
abrassive - if you have a compressor - the scortching thing is taken
care of.

The Epilog MiniHelix opens up a lot of possibilities with its Print, Cut
and Carve capabilities. BUT - the learning curve is moderately steep.
I put together a primer on laser engraving that I hopes flatten the
learning curve a bit.

http://web.hypersurf.com/~charlie2/T...ravingTOC.html

On Wed, 03 Aug 2011 21:09:56 -0700, charlie b
wrote:

The epilog's 3D mode will let you feed a "gray scale image" to the laser
and it will interpret WHITE as Don't Burn At All, BLACK as Burn Deepest
and shades of gray as percent of max power. So you can do "low relief
carving" - on both flat and curved surfaces.

Great!


The low relief carved surfaces get scortched. Harbor Freight sells an
"air eraser" - basically an airbrush that shoots aluminum oxide
abrassive instead of ink or paint. 200 or 400 grit al oxide is just
abrassive enough to remove the scortching with little change to the
"carving". At about $30 for it and another $6 for about a quart of
abrassive - if you have a compressor - the scortching thing is taken
care of.

So the process is burn and sandblast, huh? I guess you lose detail
and definition that way?


The Epilog MiniHelix opens up a lot of possibilities with its Print, Cut
and Carve capabilities. BUT - the learning curve is moderately steep.
I put together a primer on laser engraving that I hopes flatten the
learning curve a bit.

http://web.hypersurf.com/~charlie2/T...ravingTOC.html

Missing link at bottom to curved carving. It goes through from the
flat carving page, though.

Price of admission? cringe

--
In the depth of winter, I finally learned
that within me there lay an invincible summer.
-- Albert Camus

The "low relief carving" is burn - and remove scortching - if you're
working on a light wood where the scortching is distracting. On dark
woods, like the black walnut in the first example done on a two
intersecting arcs multi-centers piece, scortching isn't all that
noticable.

The sand blasting to remove scortching on a light colored piece does
cause a loss of definition - but that can be minimized by using finer
grits, lower air pressure and careful control of the where you're sand
blasting. But you can also bleach away the scortching. That can raise
the grain - but a little burnishing - say - with a dental tool - takes
care of that problem.

The link to laser low relief carving on a curved surface has been
fixed. It now points to this page

http://web.hypersurf.com/~charlie2/T...usToWidth.html

As for the price of admission - The Saw Dust Shop here in Silly Cone
Valley has an Epilog MiniHelix one can rent - for $20 and hour. If you
go through the Primer I did, you need about an hour on the Epilog to
apply what's described in the Primer. Then, another hour to find the
best set up for a test sample. After that initial cost, you can do
several low relief laser carvings in an hour.

Now compare the time (3 hours) and the cost ($60) to the price of a half
dozen carving tools and the 100+ hours of learning how to use them
reasonably well, and then make the "cost" comparison.

Now add up the price of your lathe, turning gouges and chisels,
sharpening tool)s), chucks, drive centers, tail centers, etc. and
thencmpare te prices of admission.

On Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:32:16 -0700, charlie b
wrote:

The "low relief carving" is burn - and remove scortching - if you're
working on a light wood where the scortching is distracting. On dark
woods, like the black walnut in the first example done on a two
intersecting arcs multi-centers piece, scortching isn't all that
noticable.

The sand blasting to remove scortching on a light colored piece does
cause a loss of definition - but that can be minimized by using finer
grits, lower air pressure and careful control of the where you're sand
blasting. But you can also bleach away the scortching. That can raise
the grain - but a little burnishing - say - with a dental tool - takes
care of that problem.

The link to laser low relief carving on a curved surface has been
fixed. It now points to this page

http://web.hypersurf.com/~charlie2/T...usToWidth.html

Good.


As for the price of admission - The Saw Dust Shop here in Silly Cone
Valley has an Epilog MiniHelix one can rent - for $20 and hour. If you

Wow, only $20/hr? That's not bad at all!


go through the Primer I did, you need about an hour on the Epilog to
apply what's described in the Primer. Then, another hour to find the
best set up for a test sample. After that initial cost, you can do
several low relief laser carvings in an hour.

Now compare the time (3 hours) and the cost ($60) to the price of a half
dozen carving tools and the 100+ hours of learning how to use them
reasonably well, and then make the "cost" comparison.

So, $165:$5500:$15k. Yeah, the rental wins.


Now add up the price of your lathe, turning gouges and chisels,
sharpening tool)s), chucks, drive centers, tail centers, etc. and
thencmpare te prices of admission.

What for? Different animal!

--
Worry is a misuse of imagination.
-- Dan Zadra