Etching fill areas
I think the first place to start off with when you're doing laser etching is to consider what you're expecting to achieve. This might be how deep you want the etch, to be how dark you want the etching to be and these factors come into play when you have to consider the material you're […]
Tardis
The original plan for this was to create a Tardis that I could put alongside a clock. The initial challenge was to find a decent line art image that I could use as the basis to create the different layers to make up the 3D artwork. Using a bitmap line art plan for the Tardis, […]
Materials (Wood)
Most woods can be both engraved or cut using a diode laser, but you should be careful when cutting constructed materials such as MDF and clipboard as the resigns can produce fumes that can be harmful to your health. There are alternatives in some cases such as laser safe MDF which will not release formaldehyde […]
Materials (Plastics)
Please be aware that cutting any plastic based material can produce toxic fumes and you should always user your laser in a well ventilated area. There may be significate health risks in cutting cutting some plastics and some materials should not be cut or etched including ABS which emits cyanide gas and PVC which produces […]
Electrical socket blanks
Although normally you can't cut white plastic or acrylic I have found through experimentation that you can cut electrical socket blanks which are white this is a different type of plastic (Urea Formaldehyde), it is quite a hard heat resistant plastic which means that it takes a large number of passes to actually cut through, […]
Laser Base
Once you start using the laser cutter, you soon discover that's worthwhile buying additional bits for it. The Sculpfun laser is supplied with a standard A4 metal plate to use as a base plate when cutting through material, so that your work surface is protected. The plates that is supplied by default is significantly smaller […]
Starting with a diode laser cutter and engraving machine
The reason to start in this blog. I purchased a diode laser engraving and cutting machine to see what I could do with it and as part of this I decided to try and find as much information as I could online. This is where I found that the information is actually pretty poor and […]