If there are any laser cutting inductions this week or next, I’d be interested so please let me know.
Search for “laser induction” and this is the 2nd result: https://discourse.southlondonmakerspace.org/t/laser-induction-19-30-friday-15th-jan/
Dear David,
Granted that using hardwoods in the laser cutter has been suspended for the time being, but I would be really interested to know more about what you’ve achieved in this area.
At some point in the future I was thinking about making a tea caddy out of London Plane / lacewood and engraving some lettering on it. Do you know if this might be a suitable wood? The ‘wood database’ remarks on the similarity of its structure to maple.
It would mostly be down to the thickness of the wood you were intending to cut. I’ve done 3mm and I believe plenty of 6mm ply has been used. I don’t know what the max thickness is the laser can handle for cutting.
Engraving is a different matter. The thickness is irrelevant as you’re simply engraving a shallow depth so it’s mostly about the surface being flat. Some of the 3mm ply I’ve been using is horribly warped (this is mostly due to how ply is made) but you should hopefully not have this problem with solid planed pieces.
If it’s an assembled piece that may make it tricky to engrave.
Material wise I would say oak, maple, ash, beech and birch are all good to use as well as fruit and nut trees like apple, almond, cherry, pear and pecan. Mostly based on being able to burn these in open fires and BBQs.
Pine, fir, cedar and spruces would be a no-no.
All of this would be dependent on someone either making an approved list or some sort of process to approve hardwoods.
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Its not suspended, but we need to do some careful testing before we start using materials, again with laser ply last night it filled the room with smoke.
What ply are you using? I’m not getting much smoke beyond what’s in the cutter on 3mm ply. There’s no visible smoke in the room during or after. A smell yes but no smoke.
Could we put an expanded list in the wiki or a separate thread and decide on a testing and approval process?
Possibly a list of who needs to be involved in testing with who ever wants to add a material.
What the testing must involve (cuts/engraving/videos etc)
We could be fairly specific for some materials such as ply such as where it must come from (regular suppliers rather than off ebay as an example) as well as max thicknesses.
Make it so.
Sounds good.
I think you should be a laser ‘maintainer’ then it’s easier for you to lead on this process.
@unknowndomain @tomnewsom ? whaddya think?
SOunds good to me! Share the load!
All laser inductors are laser maintainers…
@david the laser ply was from work, however it’s widly known that laser ply varies in quality, so I would suggest as I mentioned before that we have approve materials lists where they are more controlled… PMMA is just evil all the time, but Ply and MDF depending on the glues can be okay… Also the sooner we get permission and install a flum the sooner we can just avoid the Atmos unit entirely.
Giving up on extraction?
The wiki is pretty behind, shows just you and Tommen as maintainers.
Yeah extraction outside, rather than into the air in the space…
Yes venting to the outside is preferable. Glue fumes aside you still get the burnt wood smell which i actually like but others may not.
I’ll start a detailed list of ‘approved materials’ based on what I’ve used and is already OK and include supplier requirements for wood with glue. Let people know that to get something added requires a maintainer to test it with them.
I’ll only be back in the space 1st week of Feb but will get something on discourse soon.
How is that?
@Trustees we need to make a request to the landlord for that then
N.B. Just realised I forgot to put money in the lasercutter box before leaving this evening. I wrote down each of my cut times and will be sure to add the total amount when I’m next in the space.