Wood Engraving | Laser Engraved Guitar

We thought it would be a great addition to our showroom to personalize and customize an acoustic guitar.

For this project, we used a Trotec Speedy 400 flexx machine. All you will need to complete this project is any type of acoustic guitar. This particular guitar was engraved using an image of Neil Young.

Here's how we did it!

First thing we need to do is to properly set up the image file to ensure the best effect the laser machine will have. In this first step; we have the original photo, an outline of an acoustic guitar and the perimeter/engraving measurements of the guitar put into a rectangle.

This step is created to make sure the picture is the right size for the actual guitar. An outline of the guitar was created to overlap the image to see what exactly will be engraved. Very helpful for making sure the photo is the right size to be engraved.

During this process, the contrast is slightly enhanced to ensure the best effect. The dark tones in the photo were enhanced to be darker whereas the light aspects of the images were brightened to have the best contrast. This step will help to reduce the detail in the actual photo which increases the end effect of the laser.

Since the machine works in RGB colours, the picture had to be converted to black and white using the Jarvis setting. This step will allow the machine software to recognize the image to engrave.

Since the engraving will show up white and the body of the guitar is dark, the colour scheme had to be inverted allowing the machine to engrave the now dark areas on the image.

Specific power and speed levels needed to be set based on the particular substance. In this case, we used 100 power, 100 speed and 500 dpi.

To fully complete the process, the guitar has to be placed in the machine in order for the machine to do the job. To make sure we placed the guitar in the proper spot, we measured to find the exact center of the guitar. We then moved the laser pointer to that point on the guitar to make sure it was in the middle. From the image, you can see that the laser pointer was moved to a different part on the screen which represents where it actually is in the bed.

A video has also been attached for your pleasure in case you would like to see the whole process visually. Not only can pictures be engraved, but anything that can be created in this similar type format including texts, graphics and other images can also be engraved.

Happy engraving!