Brilliance Laser Inks 12 Oz Laser Marking Spray – Copper Tone Red, Permanent High Contrast Metal Engraving Aerosol for Fiber, YAG, Diode, and CO2 Laser Engraver Machine, BLI201

In the instructions to this product, both on the label and on the company’s website, it is recommended only for CO2, fiber and YAG lasers, not for diode lasers. So I was trying it with my10 watt xTool D1 diode laserpurely as an experiment. To my surprise I found that it worked fine, and without having to use extremely low speeds at 100% power. Testing on a sheet of stainless steel, I started out with slow speeds at 100% power, and first increased the speed and then decreased the power. Interestingly, with this “copper tone” spray, the markings left by the laser came out black with my first tests. Only after increasing the speed and decreasing the power did I start to get something of a copper color. Apparently more laser power burns the pigment and/or binding agent and makes the designs dark. So if you want copper-colored designs with this product, there’s actually a fairly narrow range of settings that will work for that. I can give you the figures that worked for my laser, but you’ll have to experiment to get the best ones for yours.And the figures are:At 100% power, I got nice dark black marks at 1000 mm/minute and slower.3000 mm/minute at 75% power seemed to be about optimum for getting copper-colored marks.At 3000 mm/minute and 50% power the markings seemed to be fading a little.At 5000 mm/minute and 50% power the markings were definitely faded.It should be noted that products like this work by bonding a pigment onto the metal surface; they don’t engrave or etch the surface. However, as long as the laser settings are good, the printed designs will not scrape off. To remove them requires aggressive sanding that removes a layer of the metal surface as well. My guess is that some kind of chemical bonding with the stainless steel is taking place.(Sorry I have no picture accompanying this review, but my test sheet ended up as a jumbled mess.)