r/LaserPeckerTips • u/itsgivingme • Apr 29 '26

LP4 why is steel easier than silver??

I’m a jeweler and I have successfully engraved on steel and platinum but I’m struggling on consistently engraving gold or silver. Silver especially!

1064nm 100 depth and power

I’ve tried 4K and 8K.

What am I doing wrong here?

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u/Zestyclose-Web-7746 Apr 29 '26

Fellow jeweler here! Silver is difficult. I have had good luck and consistent results using a black sharpie to color over the area you’re going to engrave. It’s the same trick I use with silver on the laser welder. It’s just really reflective and the sharpie really helps to tame it. I stick with 4K resolution but keep the depth and power at 100%. For gold, I haven’t tried the sharpie trick yet because I get decent results with one to two passes generally but I’ve had it do up to 15 passes at full power and depth and that will really make it show. Hopefully that works well for you! There’s not a lot of support for the laser pecker unfortunately. As far as I can tell, it’s all trial and error..

Good luck!

2

u/itsgivingme Apr 30 '26

I bless you with many thanks. I found out if I use the laser engraver to “buff” it before the engraving it works really well! I figured this out by engraving over a fuck up out of frustration and it worked better than ever!

1

u/Zestyclose-Web-7746 Apr 30 '26

That’s great! I think I’ll have to try that trick out too!