Laser cutting – upcoming tutorial

Buying the laser cutter:

​Laser cutting has been around since the mid 60’s but it has only been in recent times that laser cutters for hobbyists have been accessible and affordable.

​At the moment you can buy a cheap CO2 laser cutter from China for about $300 however for that price you’ll often be spending more time trying to get the thing to work rather than actually cutting stuff! That said… if you have the time and patience you can often take one of those cheap laser cutters and get them working quite well.

​I have recently purchased a relatively cheap Chinese laser cutter from a local tool center here in Australia, it’s basically a cheap laser cutter from China however the store that had it imported completely set up the laser cutter and tuned it to make sure nothing was broken and that it’s working as best as it can.

The above images show early experiments in CO2 laser cutting research and one of the first 2 axis moving optics laser cutter.

​In total I spent $2200 for a laser cutter that costs about $1600 direct from China. 

​Something to consider when buying a Chinese model is they often only ship to a main seaport and in my case the closest seaport was a 1600km drive away so I would have to factor in the cost of getting it couriered from Brisbane, additionally if the laser cutter has to be returned for whatever reason (Faulty or broken) then a lot of the Chinese suppliers will not pay for return postage. So taking into consideration the cost of the laser cutter plus postage it would have come closer to $1900 and the tool center also supplied a copy of CorelDRAW valued at $126 so the cost for taking the hassel out of setting up the laser cutter and actually fine tuning it was only around $150 - $200 which seemed quite reasonable.

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What to cut:

​Now that I have the laser cutter I’ll need to decide on what to cut… Don’t worry I have heaps of ideas!
The tutorial I’ll be filming over the next couple of weeks will involve the construction of a basic building using the CorelDRAW software. It’s all still quite new to me so I’ll be designing a very basic structure and later down the road as I become more familiar with the laser cutter, CorelDRAW and all of the limitation I’ll start to design and cut more complex structures.

​The first building on the drawing board will be a familiar one to a lot of you, ‘Moe’s Tavern’ from the Simpsons. I’ve decided to build this building in HO scale because the Simpsons brings back some nostalgia and secondly it’s a nice simple structure with some points of interest that will be a good test for the laser cutter.

Additionally I’ll design a paint rack for all of my Vallejo paints and the paint brushes that will sit perfectly on my desk.

​All of the initial structures I design will be made available on my website for you to freely download should you wish to have a go at doing some laser cutting once the tutorial video has been completed.

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Materials:

​One of the most common materials used in a laser cutter is MDF (Medium-Density Fiberboard) however the only problem I’ve found is that it can be very difficult to find in thicknesses less than 3mm (In Australia anyway…). 3mm MDF will be perfect for the paint rack as an example however for a HO scale building it is a little on the thick side and it can be more difficult to hide and mask the corners.

​Thin plywood on the other hand is much easier to find and it can also be much thinner, as thin as 0.4mm thick which is perfect for details like doors and windows. This will be my primary laser cutting material due to its strength and versatility and can be found at many different hobby supply stores. Micro-Mark sell a good range of plywood sheet and I currently have a wide variety of plywood coming from them which is on its way across the pacific.

​Another product I’ve recently discovered is a wood based material called ‘Task Board’ again it is sold through many hobby stores and it is also sold through Micro-Mark, it is sold in a wide variety of thicknesses and is described as

​Very easy to cut and perfect for laser cutters

​I really have no experience with this material however from what I’ve discovered online is that many different hobbyists use the material from architectural modelers through to radio controlled aircraft modelers. It can also be wet and bent to shape for organic shapes and curves and once dry remains rigid, also it has been described as easy to sand and accepts paint well which is perfect for what I have planned.

​The big test will be with how well the task board handles the hot and humid conditions here in tropical far north Queensland! I guess only time will tell, I have a large batch of task board in a variety of thicknesses on its way also from Micro-Mark.

​Below is an architectural model build using Taskboard and a laser cutter.

If you'd like to indirectly support what I do and you'd like to save some money be sure to have a look at Micro-Mark and when at the checkout use the ​promo code
​'Boulder' to save 10%.
I shop at Micro-Mark for a lot of my tools and I also purchase many of my supplies there as well, the plywood and taskboard that I'll be using for this laser cutting tutorial has been purchased from Micro-Mark.
It's not too late to find the perfect Christmas gift and save some money at the same time :)

Click Here to go and check out Micro-Mark