can anyone help please with slate engraving?

[Rodney Gold]

I wouldn’t try engrave it , i would sandblast it. You will have all sorts of issues like the stone splitting , highly abraisive swarf and so on.
I would use soapy water as a lubricant and a tungsten carbide bit as a cutter if you were to attempt it.
As to feed and speed , your main objective is to put as little heat into the cutter as possible , I would use a highish feed rate and a slow rotational speed and combine this with a slow dwell. Impossible to give exact numbers.

[marcusmc]

I would say Sandblast or possibly Laser Engrave them. I remember seeing some nice work done by Laser on Slate by a welsh company, can’t think of the name.

[Graeme Harrold]

Laser on slate does look good, however I only have a rotary engraving machine. The first couple of sample runs have gone extremely well with a good clean cut…..great advice on the soapy water….thanks.

The tool tip seems to be holding out extremely well considering the material being cut. Will post more details on cutter attrition once I have done the 200 coasters…..(all personalised!!!)

[Alistair Richards]

I have sandblaster slate with great results 😀

[Ian Stewart-Koster]

You can also hand-carve letters in slate- it’s not that difficult.
Some slate is harder than other slate, so try a scrap or offcut first.

[Frank Corker]

Laser engraved slate gives an extremely good result in my opinion. Pictures can be engraved which are very sharp and detailed. One of the issues against it is that it is only ‘etched’ on and keeping the brightness of the image becomes a problem once it has been handled a lot. Even applying any type of varnish will dull the image substantially.

This one is on slate and a lot better than the photograph actually portrays, but no one had been handling it and so no grease on the picture, also it is untreated here.

---

Attachments: