Found only a couple references to cutting thicker polyester fabric…one of them, here;
My son-in-law designed a replacement ‘part’ for their blueberry picker, which is rather old. It uses ‘cups’ to collect the berries…and most all of them have holes in them, now…and finding replacements is either very difficult or nil. I cut the prototype out of card stock this afternoon and we’re wanting to cut the real ones out of 1/8" polyester fabric.
From reading the few posts I found, it sounds like it’s safe…but, now I want to know, @cynd11, how thick was the fabric you used for your stencils…and…can you give me a ballpark starting point for settings? Or anyone else who could help me with this…would be great.
I don’t know if my experience will help you. What I have used is not fabric but solid sheets of polyester, up to 10 mil (that’s 0.010”) thick. It cuts just fine in the laser.
The material you linked to is apparently a multi-ply material. From their website:
Sometimes called flat belting, multi-ply conveyor belting is made from material that has an internal layer of strong woven fabric surrounded by top and bottom covers that protect the inner layer.
So I would think that would be more like multi-ply cardboard in that there is air trapped in there. It seems like it should cut through okay but I would watch it like a hawk.
Thank you. Got any idea of what setting to try to start off with? My SIL said the stuff is a bear to cut by hand and since he will have to cut the piece he’s ordering into GF sized pieces, he may use a saw. I will definitely be watching it every moment.
I have some "nylon?“heavy canvas that I was using at one point to seal the window and used the Glowforge to cut the 4” hole. It was in the first weeks of having it so don’t remember the particulars but the places where it melted back together were easy to break off and of course it sealed the cut great!
I honestly have no idea of appropriate settings—that’s so much thicker (more than 10 times) than any polyester I have cut. I guess this is one of those times you whip out the testing template out and just set up some ranges.
