Hi everyone.
I finely got my Glowforge after more than 3 years patiently waiting, and have had a lot of fun the last 3 weeks.
But I run into a challenge the last day. I made some frames in Acrylic for a machine at work, but it’s to crispy, and it brakes when I screw them together.
So my question is, are there some softer plastic that are safe to laser cut? And if there are, what’s the name of it?
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There are several that are softer/less brittle and are still laser safe.
Delrin is expensive but great for industrial applications.
Johnson Plastics sells a modified acrylic that is not as brittle, but it only comes in one thickness.
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Delrin would be the go-to there I would think or cork sheets for a more traditional seal 
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Is Delrin available as transparent? I didn’t think it was, but maybe so. Don’t know if that is a requirement of the OP.
One thing you can try is to anneal the acrylic to make it more resistant to breakage. That would involve putting the cut pieces into a 180 F degree oven for at least an hour or two. Do a forum search for “annealing acrylic“ for more info.
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I did not see that transparent was a requirement. If so there would be few possibilities of any sort and a Waterjet cutter more useful than a laser.
I was thinking more gasket than structural frame, and thinking even leather might work in that case. As structural I would think plasma cut metals like stainless or aluminum would fit the need better.
It does´nt need to be transparent 
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I had no trouble with cracking when screwing pieces of acrylic together but, I tapped the holes to match the machine screws I was using.
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This behavior means one of several things may be happening:
- Your material is a poor grade of acrylic, or isn’t acrylic at all. If this is Proofgrade, move to the next points.
- The surface you are screwing the parts to is not flat.
- You are overtightening the screws, by a lot.
I would look at addressing these points before looking at changing the material. I have done a lot of assembly with acrylic and it is usually plenty tough for this type of application.
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In addition to all the points below, you can also try annealing the acrylic. Bake it in the oven at 180F for 1hr/mm for full annealing benefit or about 3 hours for “good enough”.
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This question is outside our team’s scope. I’ve moved it to the Beyond the Manual so the discussion can continue there.
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