Kiss Cutting

jimstock60 · December 30, 2016, 1:07am

I just clicked on a link attached to the story about Laser Foil, the story was about Kiss Cutting, will the Glowforge be able to do this? http://52lasers.com/2015/08/19/85-sticker-sheets/ I wonder about this because they are manually setting power and speed to achieve these cuts, will we have close to this control?

jbv · December 30, 2016, 1:12am

We should be able to. Have not yet heard than we actually can.

wesleyjames · December 30, 2016, 1:55am

I arrived here thinking I’d see an led lit cutout of the band.

This is interesting too.

erin · December 30, 2016, 2:20am

Can someone explain why we wouldn’t be able to do this? Why wouldn’t we be able to adjust the power and speed settings? Or is there something more that I’m missing?

Jules · December 30, 2016, 2:21am

No you can definitely adjust them. (seen it in action - Marion’s machine)

jbv · December 30, 2016, 2:56am

Kiss cutting is delicate. You need to cut through the decal itself without cutting into the backing (or carrier sheet) at all.
Not deep enough and the decal will tear or not come away at all.
If you cut too deep the backing will peel up along with the decal. This can be annoying on a personal project or it can be disastrous for a commercial one. Deeper still and you will cut all the way through.
Decal material will vary in thickness. Dialing the glowforge in to cut through just the decal material and not the carrier sheet should be possible, but we have not seen it yet.
Of course, this is what cutting plotters do all day long. I can’t speak for the hobby cutters, but the pro-grade machines do it quite well… as long as you have a sharp blade and your settings are dialed in correctly for the material (which often includes a very small test cut or series of test cuts).

ianauch · December 30, 2016, 2:57am

Plus i remember @dan posting how to set the power and speed settings manually not too long ago. Unfortunately i wasn’t able to find the post when i just looked.

Jules · December 30, 2016, 2:58am

Didn’t Marion demo it on that last Live Stream session he did too? I’m trying to remember if I saw it there…I think I did.

jbmanning5 · December 30, 2016, 4:33am

The simple answer is yes, it should.

The longer answer is test and dial in your settings for a given material. The Glowforge will come with presets for proofgrade materials, which the GF team tests. But, from what we have seen, full manual controls are available in the manual cutting section which will be power, speed in inches per minute (I believe is what Marion has been posting) and resolution.

smcgathyfay · December 30, 2016, 4:58am

I do it often on my 35wt…not hard once you get the settings…
I make alot of personalized stickers for various parties for my son and kiss cut them on the laser.

marmak3261 · December 30, 2016, 5:32am

It all depends on your materials for the stickers. I engraved something today and did some test squares. The lightest of the tests vaporized the masking material almost perfectly and left a layer of adhesive with just the slightest discoloration below.

I just have the standard Avery labels in my office. I don’t have any big sheets. What do folks use to do this method on lasers?

jimstock60 · December 30, 2016, 1:27pm

Unfortunately, I don’t know, heh. I don’t have a laser. My main concern, which you and others have answered is whether or not we could manually alter the speed and power ourselves, which now I understand we can. That is great, like I said while I don’t know what settings people currently use on other machines to “kiss cut” I think, like you said depending upon the material, we will be able to do this ourselves.

PFI-Guy · December 30, 2016, 1:44pm

When @marmak3261 records his sessions, the interface changes quickly, but there are power adjustments.

Biggest plus to the ProofGrade material, it automatically does the settings for the end user.

jimstock60 · December 30, 2016, 1:47pm

Well there is another question for Glowforge, will there be any Sticker/Adhesive sheets or Laminate offered in Proofgrade materials?

PFI-Guy · December 30, 2016, 1:52pm

It was at about the 32:30 where the settings show up (power and speed).

You will need to have the YouTube displayed in full screen.

Jules · December 30, 2016, 5:16pm

Veneers, yes…not sure if that’s what you meant by laminates. @marmak3261 displayed the contents of the Proofgrade pack on his unboxing videos.

No stickers or paper products that I can recall.

jbv · December 30, 2016, 5:29pm

Not quite decals, but the ‘wooden stickers’ they were giving out at MakerFaire were sweet, and I hope that material is available as Proofgrade. Don’t know what they were calling it, but it had a 3m adhesive on the back.

edit: this one. I hadn’t looked closely at it for a while. It is a “self-adhesive veneer” product of some kind.

chrgeup · December 30, 2016, 5:42pm

@smcgathyfay as usual has done it… Thank you for sharing your experiences and letting us know whats possible. - Rich

jimstock60 · December 30, 2016, 7:19pm

Sorry, I meant Window Cling Vinyls, though not sure if that is safe to cut. I also meant not neccesarily the Proofgrade materials they send us, but available in their store.

Jules · December 30, 2016, 8:12pm

Pretty sure the vinyl is a no go …don’t know about the store stuff so @dan would need to answer the stickers/papers question.

But if you are planning to do a lot of them, a laser isn’t really the right tool for the job. For that you want a cheap digital cutter (Silhouette) because those are designed to do just exactly that, and do it very reliably, with perfect 3-Point alignment and an optical eye.

And those can handle vinyl films.