*notcot in design , 01:22

Laser Challenge #4: Wax Seals- 04.19.13

waxy0.jpg This post is part of the NOTlabs Laser Challenge: The ground rules are: Shawn and I are alternating days with executing and sharing a Laser Cutter involved experiment! And most importantly - we’re supposed to have fun, explore ideas, and it’s less about a fully formed product/concept at the end of the day, but more about seeing where the experiment takes us!

Day 4! My turn… for some reason, wax seals came up yesterday, and it’s one of those things i have always wanted, been meaning to design, but could never quite commit to what to put on it to have a proper brass one made. So, why not try engraving acrylic and seeing how it works as a wax seal? It was also a chance to explore the option of grade engrave, which is used for rubber stamps, etc so that things like the dot in a lower case i are more stable (and don’t break off in use) - basically it tapers the edge instead of being perfectly horizontal. Now i can leave a seal of “Imagined by NOTlabs. Made with lasers!” and “Inspired by NOTCOT. Realized by NOTlabs.” on things! To be honest, it worked better than i expected, but also needs a bit of refining… might have to experiment a bit more, and if i had more time, i have a feeling mounting the engraved discs on a handle would help quite a bit, also figuring out the right timing of how long to let the wax sit before pressing the seal in. But that being said, still got quite a few good examples, and will definitely be exploring it more… also such a fun way to seal things up… take a peek at the details and process on the next page!

p.s. If you have ideas, or want some laser cutting done, or want to play with us… feel free to use the contact form or leave a comment!

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Somehow poor bucky ended up looking a bit meerkat like on this test… waxy9.jpg

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5 Notes

Dear Manager,

Good day.

Hermosa here,and we are from a professional wax seal product factory,could you pls contact with us?So you will get the catalogue for checking.

There are various kinds and colors for you choosing and samples are always ready for you!

Best wishes
Hermosa

----- hermosa 05.01.15 00:08

Hello,

I made an attempt at this last night before reading the details about the grade engrave. I have just got a rabbit laser and am not exactly fluent on it’s operations yet. Can you please send me a print screen of the settings you found to make these great results? Thank you!

----- Sean 15.05.13 05:29

I’ve tried to laser engrave wax stamps before but unfortunately using plastics for the stamp material are not nearly as good as a custom metal one. I tried multiple waxes and different plastics and I could never get it to be an easy process with consistent results.

Metal stamps act as heat sinks and draw the heat out of the wax cooling it much faster and making a much more sharper image. As soon as I made a stamp out of metal it was much better than my laser cut plastic ones. The laser cut ones work to some degree but you have to wait for the wax to slightly cool and even then there’s still a good chance the wax will stick to the stamp.

----- Jon 22.04.13 05:04

Hi Monica,
Grade Engrave is a little different than regular engraving. Instead of etching everything the same depth, it tapers the vertical faces making them rounded instead of 90 degrees. As for depth, that is controlled by 3 factors. The speed, power, and scan gap of the laser have to be all accounted for in order to achieve the desired depth. The scan gap referes to the overlap on each pass. The sunburst was meant to be deeper than the text.

----- Shawn 19.04.13 19:30

So cool. I’ve been thinking about laser wax seals a lot. Is the “grade engrave” what makes your sunburst & lightning bolt have more depth to them than the text? (i.e., can you control depth of engraving with a laser?)

----- monica 19.04.13 14:06


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