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The Laser Thread

Drew Riley said:
Mine showed up in the mail today. I got mine from an Etsy seller named Dog Bite Engraving. He also included a couple accessories (chuck key holder, and a safety glasses/sharpie holder) which was a pleasant and very welcome surprise. Setup was quick and easy too.
Click to expand...

Please keep us posted

I Love this thread. I need to go back and re read it.

I know I want Something. I hate etching. I'm slow to do stuff because of it.
I feel it's a crap shoot. I burn through stencils cause I like them Deep.

I actually have a professional industrial etcher....not a rinky dinky knife made one.....and I still don't like doing it.


But I'm so busy, I don't have Any time to learn.... None.
I need a total, prepackaged set up, for simple knife layouts.
I bet it's coming.
 
Crag the Brewer said:
Please keep us posted

I Love this thread. I need to go back and re read it.

I know I want Something. I hate etching. I'm slow to do stuff because of it.
I feel it's a crap shoot. I burn through stencils cause I like them Deep.

I actually have a professional industrial etcher....not a rinky dinky knife made one.....and I still don't like doing it.


But I'm so busy, I don't have Any time to learn.... None.
I need a total, prepackaged set up, for simple knife layouts.
I bet it's coming.
Click to expand...
There is a slight learning curve, but once you get set up and make your first etch with a laser, it's all pretty straight forward. Not that I don't think there's much more I can (or need to) learn, but for basic etching, it's not super complicated.
There's tons of support these days for Lightburn, and I often find myself using ChatGPT if I have trouble formatting something, or I'm looking for suggested settings. It definitely takes some of the guess work out.

I know one thing: It's a weight off my shoulders knowing I don't have to custom order stencils any time I change steel, and I no longer have to "baby" my stencils and worry about having enough to finish a batch. Besides that, the etches are much more consistent, and cleaner, and setup is easier and faster. It's also great being about to project or "trace" the etch on the steel before I hit run, so that I know exactly where the etch is going to be. Not that you can't do that with stencils, but it does seem like etching with a laser is more efficient overall.
 
The Sculpfun IR2 is what I use to do mine. I set it up on my Anolex CNC, but it will work on a laser machine, too. Lightburn is pretty easy to learn and it's all about speed and power and interval settings.

It's not as fast as a fiber, but it works for me!

PXL_20250821_180652621~2.jpg
 
Linus Knives said:
The Xtool F1 does the job just fine and it's so easy to use. I just use the included Xtool app to run it and there's barely anything to really learn.
Click to expand...

100% true. I think it's a terrific setup. Idid download Inkscape though, to to the actual "artwork". The Xtool app is a bit limited in that sense.
 
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