A pulsed, nanosecond fibre laser with wavelength of 1064 nm was used to texture grade 316 stainless steel and low alloy' carbon steel in order to generate contacts with high static friction coefficients. High friction contacts have applications in reducing the tightening force required in joints or to easily secure precision fittings, particularly for larger components where standard methods are difficult and expensive. Friction tests performed at normal pressures of 100 MPa and 50 MPa have shown that very high static friction coefficients greater than 1.25, an increase of 346% over untextured samples at 100 MPa, can be easily achieved by single pass laser texturing of both contacting surfaces with the use of low pulse separations. The high static friction coefficients, obtained at 100 MPa normal pressure with textures with up to 62.5 mu m pulse separation (processing speed similar to 0.67 cm(2)/s), were found to be associated with a significant amount of plastic deformation caused by the high normal pressures. As a result, higher normal pressures were found to result in higher friction coefficients. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.