What is the best way to engrave slate tile with the xTool F1 Laser?

[@KidneyMush]

I like your style, no arrogance or egotistical catch phrase etc…subscribing

[@Vintauri]

Thank you! I try to keep it down to earth.

[@sharitrowbridge8881]

Thank you!! We are doing slate tiles for a craft fair and relatively new to the stool. this helped so much!!

[@Vintauri]

Glad it was helpful!

[@williamrozinski9069]

Very informative and understandable

[@Vintauri]

I’m glad it was useful!

[@naterife8871]

Thanks Steve. I just received an F1 yesterday. Will be ramping it up this up coming week.

[@Vintauri]

Glad to hear it! Let me know how your first engravings turn out.

[@naterife8871]

@Vintauri Made my 7 Grand kids a scored pocket hug out of a Black Aluminum business cards. WOW! 6 seconds each. I am blown away. Engraved my logo 1" round on the back of 120 Christmas ornaments for our church on Baaswood, 26 seconds flat. This laser is awesome. I have 25 tumblers coming up next. 😀 will breakout the rotory. After that may try the extension. I still use the D1Pro for larger things.

[@Vintauri]

@ that’s awesome! I’m glad you’re finding it useful right out of the box.

[@kimvellore4134]

Thanks for doing this video, you probably saved many of us time and tiles.

[@Vintauri]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Scuba_Son]

This is fantastic, thank you for the details and time to put this together.

[@danielastone7924]

Omg you save my life !! Thank you so much !! ❤

[@Vintauri]

Glad it helped!

[@magilla03]

Hey, Thanks a lot! I enjoy your videos and find them extremely helpful! I am realy grateful!

[@Vintauri]

Glad you like them!

[@oriolesfan2463]

Thank you for the comparisons, helps a lot!

[@Vintauri]

Glad it was helpful!

[@theoilykrafter]

Thank you for the great video! I like all the different tests you performed! I will definitely try a couple of these to up my coasters!

[@Vintauri]

Glad it was helpful!

[@roysigurdkarlsbakk3842]

I don't have any experience with LED lasers, but that IR laser looked good. As for coating, my advice is to just engrave it and then coat it with hardwaxoil. I use Osmo Topoil 3058, which as a bonus, is food-safe. Just apply it thinly and wait a minute, then rub off all you can with a dry cloth and let it harden for 12-24 hours. This produces nice contrast and will keep the finish for a long time.

[@JohnMark61355]

Thank you!

[@Vintauri]

Thanks for watching!

[@stevewalsh5479]

Thanks. Any benefit to multiple passes? I found with metals and the IR, that helps.

[@fruitloops68]

Awesome ! 🌞Do you have any links for the material tests?

[@Vintauri]

It's really easy to build them in xTool Creative Space. Here is a video I did on the process. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hIq9lX1prbmmg8k

[@Vintauri]

If you are using lightburn, the material test generator is there as well. kzbin.info/www/bejne/enTJh5ZugZqBq6s

[@EB3D_Customs]

Nice!!

[@Vintauri]

Thanks!

[@hedleypepper1838]

Hiw long before we see more powerful IR lasers in these machines, 8w probably the logical max with 4 IR diodes ?

[@Vintauri]

It will be interesting to see if they can increase the power on the smaller diode IR lasers or will focus on the fiber modules.

[@shughes599]

What does duration do to the mark, increase/decrease etc. I suppose I will run a grid with it and figure it out. Nice content, that blue laser on sanded and finished is much closer to red laser output. I suspect I would go that way, prep a batch while burning designs.

[@Vintauri]

Duration is generally used in raster engraving to tell the laser how long to stay on each dot or pixel. That would be a good test to try, it would be similar to slowing down the speed and might give a deeper engrave depending on the power and number of passes used. On tile however I feel it would cause more of the yellowing look if it was set too long. I might have to revisit this and see how it effects the results.

[@rochelleharley1806]

Where can I download the test you are engraving?

[@Vintauri]

They were created using the tools in xTool Creative Space. Here is a video I did on the process. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hIq9lX1prbmmg8k

[@deannahepner9355]

Where do you get your tiles?

[@Vintauri]

I have had the best success and price purchasing the bulk pack from Michaels online. They come out to be $0.75 each and I've only had a couple of bad tiles in all of my orders. The bad part is, you can only order them online and they are randomly in stock. Otherwise I've found them on Amazon from this reseller at about $1.00 per tile and they were decent quality as well. amzn.to/3AsfBn2

[@lucienvanschendel8262]

Very nice, Really depending on how much you have to produce, which settings you'll choose. Just a question, are you applying a finish after you engraved?

[@Vintauri]

I'm applying the finish first, letting it cure and then engraving it. I've tried applying it after and it seems to mute the contrast and have a less brilliant white color.

[@jginme]

Great info but cant see the settings because of movement and poor focusing. This would have been my goto video for F1 Slate but it takes way too long to set up the test grid based on your unfocused vid. Love your stuff otherwise!

[@Vintauri]

While I do share my base settings from time to time, you really want to take the time and run your own material tests. Variations in your material source, laser age and power, along with even environmental differences can effect the settings to get a quality engrave. Even personal preference to the look can be different. It's why I have created videos specific to running material tests in both XCS and Lightburn. The focus of this video was more about the differences in material prep, and laser type. I do try to grab photo stills of projects in more recent videos to help avoid the focus and movement issues when trying to show quality or details. So hopefully in future videos you can have a better reference. Thanks for watching!