Cutting various types of rubber?

[Dave Norbury]

I've got some samples of various kinds of rubber that might make some nice templates. I'm wondering whether anyone has experience/advice on cutting any of these:

Silicone?
Natural gum rubber?
Latex?
Neoprene?
Polyurethane?
Butyl rubber?

The samples are all around .062" thick and range from 40 to 60 DURO. Are any of these a 'no-no' to laser?
I'd appreciate any thoughts you may have.
Dave

[Joe Pelonio]

I have cut silicone, the only problem is getting it to lie flat and not blow out the exhaust (it was thin). Have also done neoprene and Polyurethane,
and Butyl that was made for pond liners, much like inner tube rubber. All were OK but the rubber somewhat rough and with a sort of dust-like ash left on the edges.

Anything new should be done with care to check the MSDS because anything could be formulated with some amount of PVC in it and with all the imported materials these days it can vary greatly depending on the source.

[greg lindsey]

I have cut all those you have mentioned without any bad side effects. Joe mentioned some ashing on some of the materials, he is correct, I used a paint brush and removed the ash, sometimes needing a wipe with some DNA on a rag.

[Dave Norbury]

Thanks for the replies.

Joe, your comment about MSDS is a good one. I'll try and get them from the supplier. I cut out some small patterns (to minimze any harmful gasses in case there was a problem) in the poyurethane, natural gum rubber, silicone and the latex. I used slow speed and low power levels (10-15% speed and 10% power on an EXT36, 120 watt machine). The polyurethane, gum rubber and latex all cut easily but left a sticky residue. The latex was the worst. I varied the frequency from 2500 to 300 dpi and it did not seem to make much difference. I tried the silicone but it made popping sounds at these speed/power levels and did not cut well.

[Dmitriy Kumets]

I have cut silicone, the only problem is getting it to lie flat and not blow out the exhaust (it was thin). Have also done neoprene and Polyurethane,
and Butyl that was made for pond liners, much like inner tube rubber. All were OK but the rubber somewhat rough and with a sort of dust-like ash left on the edges.

Anything new should be done with care to check the MSDS because anything could be formulated with some amount of PVC in it and with all the imported materials these days it can vary greatly depending on the source.

The MSDS is incredibly important. One of my friends recently emailed Epilog asking how they found Neoprene that was PVC free.

Apparently the marketing department messed up and put up a sample club item in neoprene that did have PVC in it. You'll notice that the neoprene laptop sleeve is no longer on the epilog site.

Beware - even if it's on the epilog website, do your own fact checking and get an MSDS.

[Bill Cunningham]

I've used old gas blown and chem blown neoprene wet suit material for pistol mag cushions. I laser cut them to shape, and glue them to the bottom of the mag so when they hit the concrete floor during a mag change, the damage to the mag does not accumulate. However, just that little addition/change takes you from production class to standard class