Laser engraved acrylic signs custom-made for your business

Read about high-quality laser engraved acrylic signs service. A customer asked if we could engrave a sign out of either wood or acrylic for his wife’s business. Yes, we can do that. But the important next question is how big? It needs to be around 450mm and round. Yes, we can do that. We can go up to 500mm for a round sign. But that limits the materials.

A local timber yard supplies us with good plywood that is ideal for laser cutting and engraving.

We can engrave on different plywoods ranging from darker Walnut through to light Poplar. These plywood sheets are 3mm thick. They often have a MDF centre and timber veneer either side. This gives a consistent laser engraving and cut without visible random air pockets on the edge when veneer layers are joined in the middle.

The colour of the engraving is more predictable with the MDF centre. Wood being a natural product can have large variations in colour within a piece a timber and between different pieces of timber. This was particularly clear recently when laser engraving 40 wooden Acacia cheese boards the colour variation was huge.

When burnt these heavy metal toxins are released into the atmosphere and quite unsafe for the laser operator or anyone else in the building. Nelson City Council has an article on burning CCA treated timber for firewood referencing this chemical release. If you are wanting an exterior sign, we recommend a naturally durable solid wood to be used. However, over time these will change colour, can move and warp and have surface checking open up in your sign. Fine detail can be lost. We recommend deep and bold lines and text for exterior wood signs. While it can’t achieve the same corner detail as a laser a CNC router machine is best budget wise for this style of sign.

For laser engraved acrylic signs, we can fill the laser engraving machine bed and have up to 800 x 500mm sheet sizes.

For a sign of this size the thicker 3.2mm thickness is best to use as it is very robust. These acrylic sheets come in range of different colours. They are a two-part composite sheet. There is a thick back layer. This is the reverse side of the sheet and will be seen as the edge as well. On top of that for the face side is a very thin layer of a different colour.

To create a custom-made sign, we engrave through the surface layer exposing the rear colour. With that process you get a two-colour sign. These materials are also UV stable and can be used for exterior purposes. With these options an acrylic sign was chosen. Also, to increase from the first estimate of 450mm in size to the full 500mm diameter size.

Does image quality affect laser engrave sign quality?

The quality of a custom-made sign image is important. You want the best presentation of that sign you can get. If it is for your business this is how your business will be judged. They haven’t even entered the building and made a judgement of what might be inside. When low-quality, low-resolution images are blown up for a sign the pixelation is drastically exaggerated. If you are looking for that jagged edge pixelation effect everything is fine.

However, if nice smooth curves are more your thing, then a vector image is the best file type for a sign. By using a high-power fast laser engraving machine set to a high DPI printing quality like our Trotec Speedy 360 120-watt machine we can reduce that pixelation effect. But only if the image itself is high quality to start with. Sometimes we can work with low quality image and spend time in graphic design converting the image to a vector image eliminating pixels. Then working to smooth out the edge and get a far higher quality result. This can take some time however and is an added cost. A vector image generally does not need this extra process.

Will a custom-made acrylic sign fade?

Generally, no. As laser engraving is not a printing process there are no inks. Inks can fade over time. The acrylic is two layers of plastic. The effect of the sign is to remove one part exposing the other. There is a depth to the image. You can run your fingers over the surface and feel the image cut into the surface. However, as a plastic it will change colour over many years. These Trolase acrylic plastics are UV-resistant and will last a considerable length of time.

What was the outcome?

The colour chosen was a white sheet with black backing layer. This gives a black and white sign effect. All the engraved areas and edge is black with a white background. This is quite a large amount of engraving and takes some time to do. Our machine can do multiple processes in one set of instructions. It transfers from the engraving process to the cutting process and completes the sign in one operation. It just requires some clean-up from us afterwards and is ready for our customer.

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