As usual, begin by importing our graphic and adapt it to your preferences, or you can use your own design. Using relief mode and the two gray levels in the graphic, you can engrave two different shades into the cork in a single process. To find out which grayscale achieves which colour change, you should first apply the grayscale matrix.

Send the graphic for the pinboard to your Trotec laser machine with the following settings:

Process mode	Resolution	Cut line
Relief	333dpi	none

Halftone	Others
Colour	Enhanced geometries

Tip:

As the Pinboard is mostly viewed from a distance, you can use a coarser resolution of 333dpi. A higher resolution will not be seen by the human eye, allowing you to save a lot of time in the laser engraving process.

Load the cork into your Trotec laser machine and completely cover the rest of the working area using a suitable material, such as paper. The large nozzle gives the best results with this material. The parameters will vary depending on your laser machine and the available laser power.

Laser Engraving Parameters

Colour	Process	Power %	Speed %	ppi/Hz
Black	Engrave CO2	50	70	500

Passes	Air Assist	Z- offset	Advanced
1	ON	0mm	High Quality

Laser Parameters: Scratching

Colour	Process	Power %	Speed %	ppi/Hz
Red	Cut CO2	12	4	1,000

Passes	Air Assist	Z-offset	Advanced
1	ON	+9 mm	-

Laser Cutting Parameters 

Colour	Process	Power %	Speed %	ppi/Hz
Blue	Cut CO2	60	1	1,000

Passes	Air Assist	Z- offset	Advanced
1	ON	0mm	-

Tip:

Cover the workspace very carefully when working with Cork. This ensures the best extraction performance and avoids any flame formation during laser cutting.

For additional stability of the cork we stuck a slightly smaller sized MDF board on the back. This allows us to easily attach wall hooks post processing. Send the MDF-Template graphics to the laser machine with the following settings:

Process mode	Resolution	Cut line
Cut Job	1000dpi	None

Halftone	Others
Colour	Enhanced geometries

Lay the MDF plate into your Trotec laser machine. The parameters will change depending on your laser machine and available laser power.

Laser parameters	Colour	Process	Power %	Speed %	ppi/Hz
Cutting	Red	cut CO2	90	0.4	1,000

Passes	Air Assist	Z offset	Advanced
1	ON	0mm	-

We used the JobControl® default settings for MDF with 6mm thickness.

Use a damp cloth to clean the cut edges of the cork and attach the MDF-plate to the back.

Your personalised noticeboard is now finished and ready for hanging!