Just missed it by thaaat much…
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I had an interesting fail recently. I was cutting some thick walnut hardwood (about 10mm) and it flared up and produced a small flame. The flame burned the wood right under the lens and managed to cover it with just enough soot to cause it to defocus. I cleaned it up, and the next go around, the magnet that was holding the wood (kind of angled) caught on the head of the GF and then flipped over. I probably wasted about $20 worth of wood… After that I ended up planing down the wood to about 8.5mm so it was a bit easier to work with. The honeycomb pins just weren’t quite long enough to hold things down either. After my fails, I put a wet paper towel on top of the wood for a few seconds, and then it cut perfectly without any flame.
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Pay attention to that. My machine jumped on me about 1/16” on a particular engrave and I ended up having to swap units.
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Even Mahogany can be cut with care if it is damp, where it can burn up like cardboard if not,
I have cut 10-12mm Walnut and Paduk with reasonable success but I only hold it on the sides, as anything that reaches over will be hit, Also even really long hold down pins could not take any warp out anyway.
Any hit or even rapid change of direction will throw the centering off so it will not cut where it is supposed to,…
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I was able to cut 10.5mm Walnut before, but it was a fairly small piece. What are you using to hold things down on the sides with? I think I might have actually taped mine down but I can’t remember, it has been a bit.
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The effort is to hold the piece in a perfect x-y control. On a thick piece, if there is any warp, you are not going to take the warp out with any sort of magnet, bed pin, or tape, I suspect that even some sort of screw arrangement would do more warping of the crumb tray than unwarping 7/16" Walnut or Paduk.
Trying to cut 1/2" BB or Poplar Plywood will leave a charred mess, but cutting Paduk or Walnut, and possibly Maple is possible as they do not char as easily, but if they are not flat they will not be made flat.
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Trying to solve other issues I found some 0.01" steel flashing to shield some of the effects of the new super magnets that I was concerned would affect the blower fan. As I was making the fold down sides I realized that a sheet of steel that thin would not affect the chances of being hit by the blower so I did this…
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