Cutting wood (limitations/expectations)

Thanks. The longest wood I’d ever cut [currently, anyway] is under 20". Right now, I’m wanting to get out of my current limit of my 120mm 3d printer bed and into real materials (I’m cutting up all my designs to fit just so I can make them and it’s gotten ridiculous.)

I guess I need to budget for one and hope the neighbors don’t complain. :smiley:

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If you are working in the house noise won’t be your biggest problem. A couple of walls and some insulation cuts it way down. Dust is your biggest problem.

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Yeah, no kidding. It was way bigger that it seemed when I measured. Plus add dust collection, Tavel, x controller, and it’s huge

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Also remember that 18mm is possible with a cnc router, but it’s not necessarily the kind of thing you do in one pass if you want high accuracy.

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Not to mention in anything remotely hard, like hardwood, you’d have to slow way, way down for feed to make sure you don’t snap the mill, which would likely cause burning on the wood. Foam and balsa sure, maybe a very soft pine?

This is an understatement. If I had stuck with the 500mm like I had originally ordered, I’d probably still own an XCarve.

To me, the loudest part was the vacuum. I used a regular shop vac at first, but the noise was really reduced when I bought a Festool Mini CT vacuum. The variable speed control on the CT made a world of difference.

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The CNC and Laser are two different tools that have a small set of intersecting capabilities for which either might work. But many projects can only be done with one or the other. The biggest drawback for me with the CNC was that you can not make sharp inside cuts. Even the smallest bit is very large compared to the kerf of a laser and so inside cuts are rounded.

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I was thinking of a good plywood a la opendesk.cc. This is just for funsies. I can laser embellish some end parts. Hoping, anyway. No clue what I’m doing yet.

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I use a Rigid 16gal shop vac with a cyclonic dust collector between them (otherwise your shop vac filter lasts exactly one small MDF job) with static dissipation (very, very. very important). I don’t do enough to justify another like the festool which is a great vac.

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If I was in a locked room with a Glowforge and had to cut a door handle out of 18mm plywood to get out, I’m pretty sure I could do it. But it’s designed for use up to 1/2", no more, and then only certain materials.

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And the winner for Most Absurd Glowforge Use Case Scenario goes to…!

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So now I’m looking for a hypothetical step-by-step, including building the jigs to get the 18mm ply down into the right focus range :smiling_imp:

If you had a FSL Muse you could hold it against the door and laser a hole through it :grinning:

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Or throw it against the door :smirk:

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Eventually “sandblasting” the door with the little pieces will get through…:smirk:

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You never know, you might end up in a Puzzle Room someday and there’s a Glowforge at your disposal!

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I often had problems just cutting 6mm (1/4") plywood on the 60w laser that i’ve had access too. Even doing 3 or more slow passes there would still be quite a few spots where it didn’t cut all the way through (internal knots and fillings).

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Given the folks I count as friends that’s actually more likely than not.

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Believe me… as I typed that I had a “hmmm…” moment. :wink:

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