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| Cutting Mother of pearl with laser http://mowrystrings.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10106&t=39093 |
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| Author: | mirwa [ Fri Jan 25, 2013 5:38 am ] |
| Post subject: | Cutting Mother of pearl with laser |
Has anyone had success doing this. I tried quite a while back and had no luck, I created powder more than anything else We use a high speed spindle and small tips for cutting out, or by hand on the scroll saw Recently I was contacted by my distributor and told that they now sell laminate which could be cut with laser, so I bought some 1.5mm paua sheet and used the laser and still no luck, Ive been told low wattage is the key to prevent crumbling, but I set the machine up today and used low wattage and 50 passess for every setting I could come up with. Always ended up with powder and non defined edges, Im assuming if it was thinner like 0.4mm then it would work a treat, but this is too thin for me to inlay with. What do others use, if I may ask. Anyone use a co2 laser Steve |
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| Author: | Kevin Waldron [ Fri Jan 25, 2013 5:25 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Cutting Mother of pearl with laser |
Low wattage and low ppi to begin......... also the longest lens that you have in our case it is a 4.0 lens ( standard is 2.0) Wattage on our machine set for 10-30 watts ( 150 watt max ) ppi for us is set at 300 ( 1,000 max) We also always place this on a piece of acrylic with the paper still on it as our carrier ...... this seems to work best. I assume you are using Corel or something similar....... other secret is to copy the piece/drawing and make each copy a different color....... (The way our laser works is that it completes one color before it goes to the next) The idea is to give the material a small amount of time to cool before it goes back over the part in the same place. We typically would have to cut 10-15 passes and we have cut 1.5 mm material ( which could take 20 passes or more ... even the color will make a difference. Note the thickness of the material in the shot with the laser...... don't remember what it was but it was fairly thick.) We've stopped doing this for others...... I personally lost interest and it was time consuming. Blessings, Kevin |
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| Author: | mirwa [ Mon Jan 28, 2013 8:43 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Cutting Mother of pearl with laser |
Thanks kevin, I can see the edges are burnt, this is exactly what we are dealing with as well, if we cut to fast it powders if we go to slow it burns the edge, which is really no good for maple boards. I think the answer has to be a spindle and small tip / nothing else, thankyou for the post, it certainly helped Steve |
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| Author: | Bob Garrish [ Mon Jan 28, 2013 11:17 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Cutting Mother of pearl with laser |
And LOTS of RPM. |
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| Author: | mirwa [ Tue Jan 29, 2013 8:46 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Cutting Mother of pearl with laser |
I find 24k, seems to be more than sufficent |
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| Author: | Parser [ Tue Jan 29, 2013 9:58 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Cutting Mother of pearl with laser |
Kevin, that's really cool. I've never see anyone cut shell that well with laser. I know Martin had tried it but per my understanding, they weren't able to get it to work well. As Bob said, I think folks who are in the inlay industry typically depend on very high speed air spindles for cutting shell. Trev |
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| Author: | Kevin Waldron [ Tue Jan 29, 2013 10:22 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Cutting Mother of pearl with laser |
Trev, Thanks, the brown edges wipe right off...... the other secret I failed to say was that we also coat the material with a clear laquer prior to cutting... it doesn't hurt anything and when it's time to remove just use lacquer thiner and all the brown edges are gone .......... you'd do the same thing with wood or any other material that might scorch........you can use tape but it's hard to judge when your cut is all the way through the pearl. One reason for the acrylic backer board is that it is easy to tell when the cut is all the way through if you look at the top and the outer edges. Found it a lot of work but not an impossible task.... to tedious for my taste but I did like the challenge. Blessings, Kevin |
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