3D Laser Cutting

[Ohio AV8TOR]

Anyone use a Laser to cut carbon or G10 plate stock? I know about the chlorine gas concerns but at work they tell me our machine filtration system is okay for that but I am wondering about the quality of the cut on the edges?

 

[Terryscustom]

The problem with G10 is that it is glass and resin so it burns and metls badly. I have a 120 watt laser with a 1200cfm vent blower and the smoke was crazy when I tried it and the finished product was a mess. I tried various ratios of power, speed and laser frequency with no luck. Now as an example, my 120 watt laser has enough power to cut through 3/4" solid wood with a vortex tip......messy but it does it. I was not able to get a clean finished through cut on G10.

An industrial metal cutting pulse laser may do well, but the smoke will be bad and some potential fire hazard I'm guessing. I tried a very thin strip of carbon with worse results, but did not try long with the gasses produced.

I found the best quickes results were on the cnc router with a roughing end cutting end mill. I cut mine with a 1/16" end mill with good results on 1/16" stock at a fair feedrate.

 

[Ohio AV8TOR]

Thanks Terry. I used to run a model lab with access to 60" x 60" 5-axis marching but now working in the golf industry I'm working with different set of tools at my disposal. I sure am missing the toys

 

[Kevin-Young]

Yeah what Terry said is very true. With the G10 you get a lot of burn on the parts because of the epoxy. If you do use the laser you generally have to sand edges down and do a lot of clean up. I generally figure by the time I am done cleaning up the laser mess I can have it done on the router and it will look much better.

 

[dhal22]

Router is a good idea for cutting G10 in a garage. I use a band saw or scroll saw, not fun.

 

[Vital-Rc]

If you keep experimenting you can get some decent results , the wj71 throttle arm I designed is actually cut out on a laser . The edges have burn marks but it still produced usable results .

If you're looking for near perfect results for carbon and g10 the Cnc router is the best method, at least it is on my Cnc .

 

[Terryscustom]

To me any sign of burn or melt is not acceptable.....picky bastard syndrome I suppose.