Holy Cork!

While I was at the local big box store looking for hardware for my Glowcart I’m building I happened to find this! 200 sq ft roll of natural cork for only 32 bucks!


Holy Cork! I’m gonna be swimming in a sea of Cork for a bit!

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holy! happy for you but also totally jelly.

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That’s a deal all right! :smile:

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That’s great!

I have some cork like this from a home project a few years ago. I shared a piece of it with @marmak3261 to test on his PRU. Coastering in with some cork samples and Source for cork

There were a few issue.

  1. the curl in the material was a real challenge to work with
  2. the cork I have does not laser cut very well and the engrave was just okay

I hope you have better luck with this material.

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What a steal! I’ve been looking for cork, so I know just how much that would normally cost.

So you’re going to set up shop and resell it to us in 12x20 sheets now, right? :wink:

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I’ll post results as soon as I get my :glowforge:

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Reduced 75%?! That’s a steal for that thickness of cork. I hope it unfurls well without badly breaking into chunks.

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Flooring cork will unroll without breaking apart, but that does not mean it will lay flat unless it’s bonded to a floor or other flat surface. I used a couple rolls like this when I put in radiant heated tile flooring on my back porch. The cork was to keep the heat from being pulled into the existing concrete floor. It works great!

Not to really see how this cork material will work on the :glowforge:

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Jonny_firebrand
If your going to engrave the cork then make yourself a vacuum plate and pull the cork flat. It should be easy to make with the Glowforge and a shop vacuum.
-D

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Yes! 75% off! It feels pretty flexible. Felt like He man lifting that huge roll lol. Light as a feather.

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I’m wondering if I just pre cut to the 12x20 and weigh it down to flatten it.

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How to ever get the pesky hose in there!

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Ah no pass through port

I’ve had a big piece laid out on the basement floor for a couple months with weights on it and it still curls when I remove the weights. I still plan to try and use it, but I expect I’ll have to deal with the material not being flat.

@dpruitt While a vacuum table would be great, I’m not sure how you would get the vacuum line into the Glowforge without fairly major modifications. Even with a Pro and the passthru slot, I think the vacuum line will be difficult to run into such a small opening.

I was looking at coasters from a laser cutting farmers market vendor recently, and noticed that their cork coasters were a layer of cork on top and a layer of (what looked like) thin MDF on bottom. Maybe something like that would allow use of cork that doesn’t want to lay flat on its own?

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I was thinking about the same idea, but based on the original cut test by @marmak3261 referenced above, the cork I have on his PRU did not cut very well. There are other examples on posted here where cork has cut and engraved very well, but my guess is that flooring cork has other materials in it that causes it not to cut well on a laser :frowning:

The bonus of that is that the coaster becomes a little stronger too. I made cork coasters for a vacation rental home that we own using vinyl masks from my Curio, but when a friend of ours stayed there their 4 year old son snapped the coasters in half because he “didn’t need such big coasters” (as a parent I had to laugh even though they took forever to weed & make).

Definitely consider doing some sort of clear coat over coasters though. It may depend on the cork, but the stuff I used absorbs any little bit of liquid and it shows.

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I’ve had very mixed results with cork. It etched pretty well, but cutting it was a pain, especially the rolled stuff, since it was hard to keep it flat on the surface of the cutter. But I’ve seen other people do nice things with it. So I think it depends on the type of cork you have.

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Try using a garment steamer on a piece (say 20x12 :slight_smile: ) and then weight it down. That should take care of the set the cork has taken on.

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Well the other thing to keep in mind is that they offer cork in tiles of course, as well. Keeping in mind that it’s essentially tree bark, staying curled is probably it’s preferred state of being.

I think for me, personally, I won’t be experimenting with cork unless it’s in tile form because of the PITA nature of manipulating it.

Speaking of cork with backing MDF material, though… a quick Google found these. At $4.65/12" sq in. for natural tan – although they’re kind of pricey. You’d be better off buying a thin sheet of MDF and doing it yourself with that huge roll.

https://www.bangorcork.com/products/cork-products/cork-tiles

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