For this week’s Maker Update short, I’ve got a tip from my own shop for you. If you engrave halftone images in acrylic using a laser engraver, you might find that some of the engraved material can weld itself back to the acrylic sheet, ruining the image. You can leave the protective paper on the plastic, but its easy to damage the engraving when you’re removing all of those tiny bits of paper from the finished image.
The best solution I’ve found is dish soap. Remove the backing paper from one side of the acrylic, then spread a thin layer of dish soap onto the exposed plastic. Run your engraving, and then rinse away the dish soap. The laser will cut right through the soap, but the loose material won’t be able to stick to the plastic and ruin the work. For more tips and projects like these, check out the full episode of Maker Update, every week on the Digi-key YouTube Channel
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