Engraving T-shirts

[J654]

Hi, Has anyone successfully engraved t-shirts? I've seen youtube views of it. And I was wondering if you needed a CO2 laser or could you do it with a lower powered one? Something for you to try.

Thanks for your input. Jeff

[bpoulin]

I haven't seen T-shirts engraved, I have seen denim pants, and it looks nice. Do you have a link to a video? I'd like to see it.

[J654]

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZPpWOdOklM"]Video #1
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF9Wi6ZK_F4"]Video #2
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tftqrcxA1gs&feature=related"]Video #3
One of the other youtube videos the guys says the shirt fell apart. I was seeing if anyone else had experience with this and hoodies as well.

[bpoulin]

The first 2 machines look like YAG lasers, that 3rd one looks like a CO2 laser. I'm going to go home now and kill a few T-shirts lol. By next weekend I should be able to post some results.

[Rodney Gold]

Depends on material whether they can be laser engraved. The laser will do one of 2 things , vaporise material to leave a pattern (like fleecy stuff , it melts/vaporises the fleece/nap off leaving an impression.
The other way the laser "engraves" material is to leach the dye out of it and leave the fabric intact (like it does on Denim) giving a constrasting mark (whitesh stonewash on denim).
Both require very little power.
There are alternatives too for T-shirts , one can cut precise patterns out of em and have sealed edges with synthetic materials or one can cut various Twills and self adhesive T-shirt decal material with the laser and heat press em on.

[Tweakie]

There is probably more to all this than meets the eye.

I have tried with denim and with cotton - I get beautiful patterns but the material is so weak it easily goes into holes. Reducing the power reduces the pattern so I concluded that it was mainly done with YAG rather than CO2.

Interested to hear the results of others that have tried.

Tweakie.