Deep Metal Etching LASER For Knife Making | ComMarker B4 20W Overview

Great

I’ve been getting surprisingly deep etched with XTool 20 watt laser on Elmax. The resolution is nowhere near fiber but the depth is OK. I’m not sure why yours did not engrave aebl at all.

As I've said before, this is way above my pay grade, but thank you for all the info you provide. 👍🍺

Try making flutes with the rotary tool......
From one smith to another.... ✌ outa Cape Town South Africa.....

Thanks for the review James. This one is on my short list. It would be great if you could reach out to Xtool and get a hold of their F1. Denis Tyrell reviewed it and really liked it but I would like to see it up against a genuine fiber laser. The F1 is UV but is capable of engraving steel.

The rotary stand rig is brilliant, well done!
With your higher frequency lasers they will diffuse through smoke and the atmosphere in general, so it's probably robbing it of some energy when it comes to wood. The lower frequencies tend to go through clutter much better in that regard
My opinion if I was going to use one of these for artwork, I'd lay out the design on computer, burn it into the material and then come back in with gravers and scribes by hand to have it as more permanent outline with some depth. But if you ever wanted to kick start some skills in hand engraving bolsters, guards and the like it could be a very useful tool for someone to have rather than transferring templates to something, course you could just try fiddling around with the settings on the machine as-is and applying them to see how they look.

you could combine it with 3d printing to create some tumbler style knife boxes, so the knife handle could bed into the tumbler lid and the blade in a 3d printed tip holder in the base of the tumbler, then etch the outside.

could you pattern an entire blade? this could open up ideas for encorporating handle patterns and blade patterns into matching each other, or be asymetric, i imagine a lot of the old japanese woodblock paintings would look great etched.

The temptation will be almost impossible to resist, but PLEASE do not go all "Cold Steel" on us and overdo all that billboarding on your beautiful knives. Keep it small and simple.

Oh yes that looks fantastic!!

Looooooove this!!! Opens up so many creative possibilities with blades, guards, etc. someday….

Thanks J, this was awesome. Also to note: I wanted a laser etcher and I went with the Xtools D1 20w like yours, so thanks for that too:)

You could use the rotary tool to mark out lines for fluted handles and texturing for handles perhaps.

You are starting to gather quite the tool collection. Would love a shop tour/workflow.

I understand that add revenue is important but your content lately has been very much shill content. Please come back to your roots a bit. A shill here and there is understandable but remember what you started with

Kewl vid, that laser mark is very clear and crisp IMO. You could do Picture on the blade, not my thing but some people like that, and yea hide a message in the hilt, I like that idea as well :)

Nice overview, thanks. Still biding my time for the price to drop…

If you ever do axes, the rotary tool might give you some etching capabilities on the back side…if you add a hammer head or spike, etc

Excellent results I will have to start with electro first as I am still needing a heat treating oven

Using Industrial-grade mikro/nano-tooling for creating decorative designs. Hm. Neat.

I have a lady use her 50w fiber to etch mine and I've never had to sand afterwards. I typically put mark on at very last.

So quick things as another fiber laser guy (I have the same ComMarker 20w): I don't know how deep you've gotten into the laser settings realm, but 5-10 passes with Speed: 1266mm/sec Frequency: 37khz Power: 100% Line Interval: .01000 (2540 lines per inch) Scan angle: 27-63 degrees (this is 100% user preference, I like 45 and 63) and Crosshatch on should get a really nice deep engrave. AFTER that do a couple "cleanup" passes where you let the laser remove all the ugly brown discolored junk out of your etch: Speed: 3000mm/sec Frequency: 60khz Power: 15-25% Line Interval .0254 (1000 lines per inch).

Now the secret trick with steel and a fiber laser like this: DO NOT TOUCH/MOVE YOUR ENGRAVING ITEM and move the head of your laser up by 3mm. Yes it's going to defocus, but then you can throw in these settings and it'll mark the deepest beautiful black inside the mark you've already engraved: Speed: 50mm/sec Frequency: 25khz Power: 52% Line interval: .0254 (1000 lines per inch). You can do multiple passes with this setting to deepen the black, but I'd let it cool for 90-120 seconds between passes because it gets a little toasty.

Another tip I can add is you might try doing a dozen or so "line" passes at a lower speed (and maybe try a little "wobble" in the lightburn settings, play with it a bit until you like it) before doing a series of "fill" passes, it'll help define the edges of your marks more clearly.

I liked your video and hope this helps you mark your knives a little better.

Kano wins!

I've been in the market for a fiber laser for a minute now, found you by accident from your 3d model files of your knife stands (thanks for sharing btw). Great info! What wattage is your fiber? 20W? and how do you like it for etching your makers mark in your knives so far? This is exactly what I plan on doing when I get enough info on them.

Will this engrave glass?