A method for laser cladding a substrate, comprising: providing the substrate; inputting transfer functions into a computer to control parameters comprising laser power, laser velocity, defocus distance and powder feed rate to obtain a substantially constant bead width overlap ratio; depositing a first determined variable bead width of a material along a toolpath upon the substrate; depositing a second adjacent determined variable bead width of a material along the toolpath which overlaps the first determined variable bead width of deposited material wherein the step of depositing the second adjacent determined variable bead width of material includes varying the laser power to provide varying of the second adjacent determined variable bead width along the toolpath such that an overlap between the first determined variable bead width and the second adjacent determined variable bead width is held constant; continuing to deposit a plurality of overlapping predetermined adjacent variable bead widths of a material until a first material layer is complete; forming a second material layer by depositing a plurality of overlapping predetermined variable bead widths of a material on top of the first material layer; and continuing to deposit material layers on top of deposited material layers until the cladding is complete; wherein the variable bead width of the deposited material is controlled by the computer having a plurality of input parameters to maintain the constant percent of bead width overlap; and wherein the laser power is initially a higher laser power for a first 2 to 100 deposited powder layers, then ramped down for the remaining powder layers. providing the substrate; inputting transfer functions into a computer to control parameters comprising laser power, laser velocity, defocus distance and powder feed rate to obtain a substantially constant bead width overlap ratio; depositing a first determined variable bead width of a material along a toolpath upon the substrate; depositing a second adjacent determined variable bead width of a material along the toolpath which overlaps the first determined variable bead width of deposited material wherein the step of depositing the second adjacent determined variable bead width of material includes varying the laser power to provide varying of the second adjacent determined variable bead width along the toolpath such that an overlap between the first determined variable bead width and the second adjacent determined variable bead width is held constant; continuing to deposit a plurality of overlapping predetermined adjacent variable bead widths of a material until a first material layer is complete; forming a second material layer by depositing a plurality of overlapping predetermined variable bead widths of a material on top of the first material layer; and continuing to deposit material layers on top of deposited material layers until the cladding is complete; wherein the variable bead width of the deposited material is controlled by the computer having a plurality of input parameters to maintain the constant percent of bead width overlap; and wherein the laser power is initially a higher laser power for a first 2 to 100 deposited powder layers, then ramped down for the remaining powder layers.