What materials can Mr Beam engrave?

I have had my Mr Beam for less than a week* and I have created something every day. What you may not know is that it can engrave as well as laser cut. But what materials can Mr Beam engrave?

*Read my review of Mr Beam here

If you want to know more on it’s cutting capabilities, check out the post – What materials can Mr Beam cut?

Materials for engraving

Wood: cork, bamboo, laser plywood, most of the wood types

Get the ‘homegrown’ file here

Textiles / Fabrics: e.g. coloured and thick textiles like jeans, jersey, felt, etc. 

Paper & cardboard: grey cardboard, packaging cardboard (single wave, double wave)

Stamping rubber

Leather: natural leather, artificial leather, vegan leather

Acrylic (certain colours)

Download the Garden birds engrave file here

Download the Australian flora file here

Stone: e.g. slate, concrete, pebble

I made my own custom cheese board with a blank from poundland and my cheese please SVG design which you can download for free here.

Dark or black anodized Aluminium (please note that blank aluminium won’t, as it reflects most of the laser light)

Mirror (the backside)

Floormat: e.g. coconut-fibre floormat 

A great range of materials are available from the Mr Beam store

Do not engrave

These materials listed can produce harmful chemicals when engraved so should not be used with the MR beam dreamcut laser cutter.

Plastics / Synthetic materials:

• PVC (e.g. vinyl, foils, credit cards, hard protective luggage case, specific foams, shoe soles, rubber gloves, pipes, etc.)
• PVB
• Polycarbonat (PC)
• Epoxy- or phenol resin
• PTFE / Teflon
• Glas fiber
• ABS plastic (e.g. lego, housing of electric appliance)
• PC Plastic (e.g. CDs, solar panels, plastic glass)
• Plastic reinforced with carbon fibre (e.g. tennis racket, wind surfing gear, etc.)

Textiles / Leather:

• Leather or artificial leather which contain chrome
• Neopren (containing chlorine)
• textiles containing pvc (e.g. raincoat)

Metals:

• Reflecting Metals: in this case up to 100% of the laser light gets reflected back to the laser diode and can damage it.
• Unless you use the laser marking spray for metal. Which you can get for free when you buy the Get Mr Beam II Dreamcut [S] & Air Filter II System Bundle with code – SPRAY

How to engrave

The easiest way to think about an engraved design, is to design with a fill. Strokes are for cutting, fill is for engraving. Keep your colours separate when designing to make it easier for you to keep track. You can use raster or vector (such as svg) for engraving.

Read more on what are SVG files?

SVG’s are a graphics file. It stands for scalable vector graphics which means they can be easily resized and don’t lose their quality in the process.

You can also find lots of other SVG files in my file library.

Can I use the free SVG’s on my laser cutter?

All my SVG’s can be used with laser cutters such as Glowforge, xTool and Mr Beam. As well as cutting machines like the Cricut and silhouette. They can also be used for digital scrapbooking and printing.

Can photoshop open svg files?

Yes, photoshop now supports svg files. You can choose to rasterise the image to your size requirements or embed as a smart object. Perfect for engraving.

Why do laser cutters use svg files?

SVG files are not the only format used with laser cutters. They can also handle jpeg, png and GIF files. Vectors are what you will need for cutting and raster files with work fine for engraving. The beauty of SVG’s is that that can be scaled without any loss of quality. Just make sure before your upload any svg’s that they have been unzipped if they are in zipped folders.

What can I use free Craft Cartwright svg files for?

• signs
• Canvases
• Gift tags
• Mirrors
• Coasters
• Ornaments
• Jewellery