I have seen laser engraving on reel seats, wood inserts and cork. My question to you all is would it create a structural problem to engrave right on the rod blank and then epoxy over the area? I watched a guy engrave right on a piece of plain white paper and not burn trough it.
Thanks for your insights

My first question would be what would be the purpose of doing it? If it's to put info like length, weight, etc, it would probably be almost impossible to read. Anything you put on the blank would be almost unreadable. I know almost nothing about it, but I wouldn't take the chance on damaging the fibers.

Yes you would weaken the blank. Whether or not you would guarantee it would fail would depend on the wall thickness of the blank and the depth of the engraving.

It's not a good idea.

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I have done that with good success. I am sure there would be a warranty issue, but have not found it to cut into the fibers. What has worked better is to put a coat of finnish on the area to be engraved, when it is dry engrave into the finnish only then wipe paint over the engraved area filling the grove with color, then apply another coat of finish. It makes it appear as though the inscription is floating in the finnish. Looks great.

Greg Ware

hi,
I think laser eng. into the epoxy would be the way to do it. I havent had any experiance with laser engraving but I might give this a try. thanks Mick

Greg, what brand/type of laser are you using and where can it be purchased? Thanks for the information.

John,
I would not try what you are suggesting. The lasers that are used for engraving are either YAG (Yitrium Aluminum Garnet) or CO2(carbon dioxide) lasers. These higher power lasers are in the deep infra red. They have long wave lengths and the depth of the kerf, or how deeply they will cut into the blank, is several mils. In other words the laser would cut deeply into the graphite. If the person with the laser knows what they are doing they might be able to adjust the focal length or what is called the Q switching speed to get a shallower kerf that only cut through the finish on the blank. But I would not try it. I think that you are asking for trouble.

Wow, food for thought. The plan was to put some kind of paint into the engraved area then wipe off the extra. The guy I am working with has been at this for years but has not tried this.
Thanks for all the feedback.
John

John,
Engraving reel seats, wood or cork with a laser seems like a really nice touch to me. But in each case the depth of the kerf is not really a problem. If it is several mils deep it will not hurt anything. This is not the case with the blank. If you cut a kerf that is several mils deep in the blank it will probably fail at that point. By adjusting the laser and also the distance from the laser to the blank it would probably be possible to limit the depth of the kerf to the depth of the finish, especially if you put an additional layer or two of epoxy on the blank. However, I think that this is going to be very difficult to do on a curved surface like a blank.
I have had some experience with high powered lasers and have thought a little more about this because it seemed like such an interesting idea. There might be an additional problem which is, the material in the kerf is completely vaporized but there may be damage to the blank that goes deeper than the kerf due to the heat that is generated that goes deeper than the kerf itself. I think that this is going to be especially true if the laser is a CO2 laser because it has a very long wave length.
If you try this keep us updated on your results.

For those of you that might really be interested, the power settings for depth on the lazer can be adjusted to only cut as deep as the finnish layer if you want. My brother owns an engraving store and we have experimented on blanks, reel seats, EVA, hyperlon, etc. We have probably experimented on just about all rod components except guides.

On several of my rods, I have lazered wood inserts for fly rods, EVA for fresh water and hyperlon for the salties. Have not ever had a problem with structural integrity of the blank when engraving that. It is very professional looking and yes, when you engrave the blanks, there is a special pencil type paint that you wipe in and wipe off. What is left, is only the engraving. Works very well and there is not much (designs or Logos) that can't be engraved.

The lazer engravers we use, are professional models that work with a computer and when coupled with Coral Draw, works great. The Coral Draw allows the programmer to build any design or logo that a person could ever want, or scan your design in, and vector the lines and go for it. The only draw back is, blanks unless they are a three or four piece blank, will not fit into the box, which is about three feet long.

Hope this has been of some help to you and is from an experienced lazer engraver, and rod wrapper.

Rick Case
RodsByRick

Rick,
What type of laser are you using? And how do you handle such a short focal length, if it only cuts into the finish, and the curved surface of the blank?

The focal length is manually adjusted. The power settings for depth are set at the time of inserting the information into the printing settings (burn time). Power settings can give you a light burn that just etches the surface or a deep burn. Different depths for different materials require different power settings and over the years of experimenting with the fishing rod items, we have the numbers pretty well set for the materials being used. Don't know the name of the lazer printer at this time but know they were about 18 to 27 thousand dollars to purchase each.

Hope this answers your question Emory.

Rick