Floor laminate laser safe?

When you are expecting a laser for so long you start to hoard materials. And nothing stocks you materials wise like renovating a building into an apartment. The amount of material you throw away is massive but a lot of it is good for laser. Hardboards, corrugated cardboards, cardstocks, foams are but a few.

Now I have recently outfitted the apartment with a new floor. Faux oak laminate. Basically they are MDF boards sandwiched between two layers of very hard material. I’m guessing melamine. (I hope that survives translation…) Now my questions are; Is it laserable (cutting/ engraving) by the Glowforge? and 2nd is it lasersafe?

As I have a wheelbarrow full of offcuts I’d like to know if I can throw it out or save some for the laser.

Thanks!

obviously i couldn’t say if your entire piece is laser safe since there are all sorts of variations, but melamine itself is fine.

not sure if commenting on laser safety will get this thread shut down but, depending on the age of the building I’d not only want to solidly identify the material but also be concerned with anything it’s been exposed to from paints to pressurized insect treatments, fire retardants lots of things I don’t want the fumes near me for.

For instance nice “safe” plywood isn’t always sometimes the glues used from one brand to another may not be. So please be careful.

From the question it sounds like you’re asking specifically about cutoffs from the new flooring and not reusing the old. I’d start with the manufacturer of the new flooring and find out what the materials are. They may have the data sheet on their website.

this is the case. There was no old floor. Not even a floor to stand on. We built the entire apartment from scratch within the 300m2 building.

So melamine and MDF are fine. Then I will archive some of the offcuts and see what it does whenever the Glowforge gets here.

MDF is very variable because the resin used to bind it varies. It may be very difficult to laser through and it may produce toxic fumes.

This particular category is not actively moderated by the company. We should be careful about safety advice but discussions are unlikely to get shut down unless something truly stupid is recommended. At the top of the category there is this warning:

“WARNING: Advice in this section is unsupported and is not reviewed by Glowforge. Following it may void your warranty, damage your machine, and cause injury or death.”