This is a post I bookmarked a long time ago, when I first ordered a CNC mill. Was cleaning up my bookmarks tonight and read back though it thinking in terms of having a laser now. Still eager to try out many of the listed techniques.
21 Likes
I have had this bookmarked since before I got my CNC, and every time I look at it I get the urge to head out to the garage to cut some stuff just for fun just so I can try some of these techniques. I need to figure out a way to squeeze another 6 hours out of every day. 
4 Likes
I have tried several of these with the Handibot, it looks like most of the ones that are through cuts will be easier with the GF because of less figuring to do, do to kerf and square corners. The ones that use precise depth of cut I would think would be easier with CNC router.
I love lap joints and imagine I will use lots of them with the GF.
Great article. Visit printfriendly.com and paste in the URL for the post and you can save a PDF of the article minus all the ads and other junk on the page. I do this will all my reference URLs that I wish to keep for my hobbies. This one just got saved.
3 Likes
Thanks for the point to Printfriendly - nifty online utility. The joinery article was also interesting.
Awesome link - I love the snap lock technique, I had a thought to experiment with this using engraved area, instead of a second hole - but I hadn’t thought of the semi flexible arms, which are key. I know wood will do this, but I’ll experiment with acrylic, which seems prone to snapping and not bending.
It would be cool if in the Glowforge interface you could drag and drop these different joint types into your project.
With Acrylic, being at a higher temperature may help prevent breaking.
I actually just watched a youtube video relevant to this last night. I found it pretty interesting.
7 Likes
Fascinating!
I laser cut each of those joins and shared svg files for them if you need some drawings to try them out for yourself
http://msraynsford.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Joinery
7 Likes
This article says that CNC lasers can’t do partial depth cuts. I thought that the GF could do that. Am I incorrect?
That is one of the claims; we will have to see if it will be accurate enough for joints. If not, there are still a lot of joints for cut through.
1 Like
Not joking when I say that a work colleague and I read the joinery article a few days ago and said, “Wouldn’t it be great if someone made SVG files for these?” Thanks so much for making this. As a beginner, files like this help so much. Both with execution and learning.
I believe I found the SVG file containing the first half of the joints(http://msraynsford.blogspot.com/2012/07/panel-joinery-part-1.html); do you by chance have a link to the other half of the joints?
Thank you. Again.
1 Like
Clearly I missed the round up of the other half, I’ll see if I can revive the files, feels like a very long time ago.
I thought they had been lost in the great laptop switch of 015 but here are at least a few more of the joints.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByhmPLslpgYKTmpfdGhMT21XYk0/view?usp=sharing
5 Likes
Thanks! And good luck with the next laptop switch!
Just ran across this:
The tool they’re describing has been mentioned on another thread here, but I thought it and Jacob’s makezine link would compliment each other nicely.
11 Likes