Laser Routing

[Joe Pelonio]

Someone asked me about cutting a 1/4" deep circular groove in a wood plaque that would fit an acrylic tube, for some sort of water/light project. I explained that my laser will not engrave that deeply, but that I could cut through one piece and laminate onto another for the same result. Then I got to thinking and tried an experiment on a scrap of 3/4" oak.

First I tried cutting circles .025 apart, with my settings used to cut through 1/8" oak. The result was amazingly precise cuts and an interesting effect but they were too far apart.

Then I ran it again at .016 apart. This time a quick scrape with a chisel removed the material nicely. The bottom was not perfectly smooth but I since engraved it after filling the innermost and outermost circles with black and that cleaned it up pretty well. The depth of the groove is just a hair over 1/8".

[Darren Null]

Cunning....

[Bill Morrison]

was the plaque Oak also? I've rastered some 1/4" cuts in pine and aromatic cedar and it took a little while but didn't have much of a problem. But I think Oak would take forever to try and raster.

Bill

[Joe Pelonio]

The plaque was walnut, which is probably nearly as bad as oak.

[Dan Hintz]

Wouldn't it have been faster, cheaper, and easier to just use a hand-held router?

[Joe Pelonio]

Wouldn't it have been faster, cheaper, and easier to just use a hand-held router?

You might think so, but not for me. I don't use a router enough to be able to cut something like this with precision freehand.

By the time I make a template, clamp it on, put in the right bit, this turns out to be faster. It took about 10 seconds on the laser, another 5 to clean out with the chisel. Creating the circle in Corel and doing the contours maybe another 8-10 seconds. Total less than 1/2 minute.

[Bill Morrison]

Just out of curiosity, what is the tube for. I mean I know it's going on a plaque but is it for a company? I can freehand with a router but sometimes, not often, there's a gap in the wood underneath the surface and when the bit grabs it, out comes some sliver of wood. It only took you 1/2 a minute to laser that out?? Takes me almost two minutes just to sit down. ha

Bill

[Joe Pelonio]

Just out of curiosity, what is the tube for. I mean I know it's going on a plaque but is it for a company? I can freehand with a router but sometimes, not often, there's a gap in the wood underneath the surface and when the bit grabs it, out comes some sliver of wood. It only took you 1/2 a minute to laser that out?? Takes me almost two minutes just to sit down. ha

Bill

They insisted on the walnut plaque base so I suggested they find a CNC person to do it, so I never did get details, but it sounded like a hobbyist that was going to make one of those light things where air bubbles go up a tube in water that's lit from below.

When you are in vector mode cutting circles at speed 35 it only takes seconds to run a bunch of small circles.

[Craig Hogarth]

Joe, thanks, you just figured out a solution to one of my more common requests. I have a lot of military commands that want their emblem or coin inlaid and I've never been able to get it done with the laser. I'm not very good with the router and the shape of the emblems are usually too complex for me. Using your technique I was able to inlay a wood thin cutout with no problem. Doing it on a walnut finish particle board, it took 17 minutes to cut out and another 6 min to do the emblem on the wood thin. I'll probably retail it at $60 so it's definitely worth the time.

I'll post a picture when I get to the shop later.

[Joe Pelonio]

I'll post a picture when I get to the shop later.

Please do! I'm glad it helped, that's why I posted it.

[Craig Hogarth]

The emblem is 3.5 x 3.5 (doesn't look it, but yeah, it's pretty much square) cut from 3/8 inch laser thins. Using an 77 step inside .0015 contour I was able to "route" it out perfectly. With an actual router, I'd have problems with sharp corners and the little part above the ribbon. But this was actually quite simple and not as time consuming as you'd think.

It took 17 min to route it out, going 100 power, 4 speed. I'm gonna slow it down to 3 speed on the next test to get it a bit deeper.

[George M. Perzel]

Joe;
You are 103.5% correct-much easier and faster with the laser than the router because:
1. Have to go down the basement and dig the router out of the case
2. Wrong bit is in router.
3. The wrenches are somewhere....
4. Back upstairs to laser a template for router
5. Back downstairs- darn, forgot to add 1/2 the diameter of router bit to template
6. Back up stairs, turn laser back on, laser template
7. Back downstairs, grabbed cuppa coffee on the way, but left template by the coffee pot...
8. Back upstairs-all the way to 2nd floor-took nap and said the hell with it.

and I didn't even get to the part trying to figure how to hold the part down without interfering with the router- I'm tired just thinking about it!!!

Best regards;
George
LaserArts

[Scott Shepherd]

George, you got that all wrong. It's like this :

1. Call Ed Lang (on this forum) and tell him what you need.

Of course his list probably looks like yours, but I like my short list better

[Bill Cunningham]

George you seem to have duplicated my whole day!!! But, you left out 3 constant steps in any project!

4. Back upstairs to laser a template for router
4.5 Your at the top of the stairs trying to remember why you went up in the first place...
5. Go Back downstairs-
5.5 Remembered!! Go Back upstairs
6 darn, forgot to add 1/2 the diameter of router bit to template

[Brian Robison]

Joe,
I do something similar for my walnut and brass shield shaped plaques.
I hate eye balling the brass plate so I vector some small
spirals where the screws go into the wood. The brass plate lines up perfect every time. BTW, the spirals are even easier than the circles.