What type of Plywood is this?

Does anyone know what type of plywood this is? (piece on the left) and where it was purchased from??? Its been used on the laser cutter and I want to get the same stuff :slight_smile:

Thanks!


@lasers @lasertechs

Looks like WBP

It does. But it could be anything. I’ve bought ply that looks like that and had it described as ‘hardwood ply’.

If it is wbp it’s almost certainly not laser friendly.

What characteristics about the ply mean that you want to use it? Colour? Grain?

i like the colour and grain…

There was loads of off cuts in the rack so its been used plenty of times on the laser cutter…

Any idea where I can source it from?

Laser friendly was more about protecting the expensive Atmos filters.

It cut well and came from B &Q

1 Like

Cheers mate!

that looks like some of the draw sides that went missing.
probably the 8mm ply from b and q.
dont think its laser cutter friendly.

The question was being asked on Tuesday night - it’s thin 3mm stuff from the laser materials shelves, not 8mm. I used some for the frame of my map.

Hello!

the lighter stuff looks like it could be birch plywood, the kind of stuff that I buy from Kitronik. Here is a link
https://www.kitronik.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?cat=0&q=plywood

The darker stuff, I have got it in front of me right now. It’s a veneer of some sort. If you look at the wood, there is material sandwiched in between two very thin layers of something else (the veneer).

The material in the middle looks like chipboard or hardwood to me. The veneer could be anything like cherry or oak. I am not sure if this material is good for the laser but I have got some laser grade stuff from Kitronik again. They have oak veneered plywood and cherry veneered MDF which I am about to test right now.
Links here
https://www.kitronik.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?cat=0&q=oak
https://www.kitronik.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?cat=0&q=cherry

Hope this helps!

Michele

Cheers Michelle,

Yeah I realise it’s only veneer, do you have a photo of the material you have?

From what I understand because we no longer use the atmos filter unit it doesn’t necessarily need to be laser grade (as long as all the components are kept clean).

If you could upload a photo of the material you have bought that would be super handy as the images when buying online are hard to Gauge.

Cheers,

N

I keep seeing mentions of this. Would be good to have clarification from @lasertechs on this.

On the whole, non laser grade material doesn’t cut all that well regardless. I still think MDF in all its forms is a bad idea, because it makes a mess of the machine, but that conjuncture is personal opinion.

In reality, so long as you take care of the optics; clean up properly after yourself, follow basic common sense wrt cutting reflecty shiny things, don’t cut things that are clearly toxic and vent all nastiness to the outside world, I don’t feel it matters a lot what you try and cut, your mileage will very likely vary back to the traditional cast acrylic and laser grade ply anyway…

I think we need to risk assess MDF, as it was strong H&S grounds that it was banned on previously.

Laser MDF is available, though we never officially okayed that either.

Hi Nico,
Sorry for the slow reply. These are the birch ply and the cherry veneered MDF one next to the other.

Michele