List of unsafe materials

Glad to help! I got the foamcore rule drilled into my head at college- to the point where I was afraid to even CARRY some into the laser cutter room, haha. I’m 100% positive this link was posted elsewhere in the forum, but here it is again for reference: super super helpful.

http://atxhackerspace.org/wiki/Laser_Cutter_Materials

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And probably Glowforge at some point in the future, right?

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Absolutely from Glowforge at some point:

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While it is useful to have a list someplace, it is also worth noting that the people who compile them often have differing intentions.

A busy makerspace in a university is going to have a very different definition of “safe” then an individual artist who will be watching their machine carefully and wants to experiment.

Let your personal work style be your guide.
If you are interested in quickly exploring a wide variety of design concepts then pick a material that is “known safe”, and is cheap to get (think thin cardboard).

If you are looking for interesting ways to augment an existing art practice, you may need to be more experimental.

Be safe, be careful, do your research, and experiment, or buy from a trusted source. Both of these are valid approaches.

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Not to sidetrack but to demonstrate that each material requires research. Moleskin covers TBD:
http://community.glowforge.com/t/laser-safe-notebooks/994/2?u=marmak3261
I wonder if @JeremyNielsen heard back from them.

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I am also waiting to hear back from them on this.
Hard to find on their website, but I was able to get this little blurb from within the “contact us” form-dialouge:

Most of the covers in our collections are made of synthetic material. In particular, the hard covers are made of polypropylene while the soft covers are polyurethane. Other collections are made of cardboard. Some special editions include different materials (eg. fabric).

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Nice find!! I had found the PVC concerns in a bit of google research one day, which was what led to me listing it as bad- here’s to hoping all pvc has been removed!

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Good point on the varying definitions depending on where the laser cutter is housed. A good example of that is corian, which as far as I’ve been able to find is safe to cut, but many makerspaces or schools with high traffic on their laser cutters ban it because of the dust build-up if it isn’t cleaned up.

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Thank you. I bookmarked this website for future access!

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Just as an example of the hidden hazards of materials, I believe laser cutting Kevlar will result in benzene and small amounts of HCN (hydrogen cyanide). It’s hard to imagine anything more toxic than that.

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Fiberglass can be saturated with epoxy, but also polyurethane (PU) resin. I’m not sure how PU would react.
It’s a thermoset, so I guess it would catch fire and emit noxious fumes too. I used to repair my surfboards as a kid, I used it in combination with a catalyst MEKP ( carcinogen) to solidify it quickly. A few times I wasn’t paying attention and mixed in too much MEKP and it caused the resin too harden so fast that it became burning hot, was emitting fumes and smoke and then began to crack apart. What a mess!

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Ouch! I’ve never messed around with resin too much, mainly because of the fumes.

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Thanks for the input. Would pink board (used as building insulation) fall into the danger zone? I’d assume it’s the same kind of foam.

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Just FYI. in a previous project I decided for some reason that I wanted exactly 4 mm plywood, and the first piece I found was labelled marine Plywood. I think this meant that it was capable of being bent to make the curved surfaces of a boat.
I cut it on an Epilog laser, and discovered that this particular type achieved that by having the middle ply made out of something that looked like rubber. Major smoke and fire. This may not be true of all plywood labelled marine.

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I believe the ‘marine’ part of ‘marine plywood’ refers to the water-resistant adhesives they use (vs. bindability)… would explain the nasty smoke.

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1000% correct
Same for exterior grade plywood. Not as nasty as the Marine grade stuff, but still worth noting.

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Yep, pink foam is made of the same stuff as blue foam. From what I understand, the only difference between the pink and blue foam board (other than the color haha) is that they’re manufactured by different companies :slightly_smiling:

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Good to know. Guess I’ll continue cutting foam under the car port with a hot wire. Thanks for the info.

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I’m interested in a substitute for the Pink/Blue foam. I had plans to etch faux tombstones. The limited size of the passthrough, kind of dashed those hopes anyway.

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You could cut/etch on any 1/4" material, attach that to the foam for thickness, and then paint it.

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