with great fanfare from fellow laserists, I etched designs onto custard just to see if it could be done.
took about 10 tries to get something reasonable. we tried both raster and vector. had vector cuts ripping right through this custard. we could see the tiny sliver being made, as if with an invisible hot wire, and then the custard closing in on itself as the laser moved on. really cool to watch!
at fast etching speeds, the custard did a very fast short entertaining jiggling (ok, so I'm easily amused).
I etched the name of the cafe (Cafe Borrone) that sold me the custard, saved that part and ate the rest. it didn't have nearly as strong of a burnt taste as other foods I've done. oh, well, maybe because it's supposed to taste burnt? I'll return their etched name part in the bottom of the cleaned custard cup. surely they'll be impressed.
took about 10 tries to get something reasonable. we tried both raster and vector. had vector cuts ripping right through this custard. we could see the tiny sliver being made, as if with an invisible hot wire, and then the custard closing in on itself as the laser moved on. really cool to watch!
at fast etching speeds, the custard did a very fast short entertaining jiggling (ok, so I'm easily amused).
I etched the name of the cafe (Cafe Borrone) that sold me the custard, saved that part and ate the rest. it didn't have nearly as strong of a burnt taste as other foods I've done. oh, well, maybe because it's supposed to taste burnt? I'll return their etched name part in the bottom of the cleaned custard cup. surely they'll be impressed.
to the left is a closeup of a piece of iced white cake.you can see at the very upper left of the cake is a light indentation with another indentation to the right, a bit cut off. then the blasted browner one in the forefront. these are my trials as I increased the heat.
the artwork was vector and raster based, with a black filled circle on the inside surrounded by a vector circle a bit larger. the heat settings for this outer vector circle were too cool during the earlier trials but you can see it was getting pretty messy in the hotter forefront one. we laughed watching the melting, bubbling and pushing! I wonder how much heat it takes to splash icing onto the laser cover.
not sure you could handle what you might see as an epidemiologist? laser white cake icing for a while.
I have a bit more cake to play with today and know exactly what I will be putting on it. watch this space for further posts.
and last we tried confectioner's sugar, held in a shallow cut down paper cup. we tried artwork of a filled circle, several little circles with filled lines connecting them, and a spiral with 27 revolutions within about an inch. consistently, we got balls of sugar to form, then they might move and join with another ball nearby. or maybe they'd stay where they were. made a beautiful organic pattern of spheres.yes, I ate these little bits. they were crunchy and tasted just like cotton candy - no burn taste.
earlier that day, I taught a laser class and had a friend attending. afterward, we wandered through the grocery store to get the white cake and conf sugar. he remarked, "now I'm walking through this place wondering what everything would look like lased." ahhh ... another kindred soul.
Cool! Creme Brulee is my FAVORITE! Let's do a bunch of these with the TS logo!! Just for fun!