Looking for a laserable thin plastic material that flexes and will not rip or tear

Beyond the Manual
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Prefer it to be clear, or at the very least semi-transparent.
Doesn’t need to be food grade, looking to make stencils out of it.

I want it to be flexible kinda like a milk jug. So it won’t tear and will hold up. Any thoughts?

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Milk jugs are polyethylene.
There’s also plastic stencil sheets (usually ABS or mylar) Polyester would likewise fit your parameters.

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“Flexes” probably means thing acrylic isn’t what you want? It will flex, but not too much. Maybe thin plastic cutting boards? They’re polyethylene, I think.

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polyethylenes and polypropylenes are flexible plastics but do not laser well at all. abs and hips (styrene) are a bit flexible if very thin: think of a disposable plate, which are usually HIPS. you can take out the center and test it. perhaps tyvek, or mylar might work. you can laser them, but are kind of flimsy.

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Any issues lasering PETG?

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Pop bottles are made out of PET, I believe. I thought milk bottles were the same, but apparently (from this thread) not. You can buy it in sheets: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015H4B84/ref=biss_dp_t_asn

Now then, how about laser cutting it…

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HAHAHA I was JUST replying about that stuff!

Gonna put in an order.

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I haven’t been able yet to determine how cutting it goes. It looks like Polulu will cut PETG for you, but that’s all I’ve come up with so far.

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I’ll give it a go this weekend, and will post my findings.

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Most are actually HDPE

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Eurolaser mentioned that their CO2 laser cuts it cleanly and beautifully (in advertising). So that’s somewhat promising.

From the MSDS’s that I could find (PET-G formulations can vary, like acrylic), the dangerous combustion products look similar to wood and acrylic: hydrogen cyanide (HCN), carbon monoxide (CO) and aldehydes (simplest is formaldehyde CH2O). I haven’t seen anything that indicates that those byproducts are produced in higher volumes burning PET-G than acrylic so probably a similar irritation level to that.

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Ah, pardon, yes aka polyethylene. Edited.

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How about some flavor of Mylar? Flexible and should hold up well as a stencil once cut.
Amazon, Staples, sold at a lot of places and any crafts store I imagine.

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Thank you for doing the research. The info you gathered was exceptional!

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The really thin acrylic from Inventables is surprisingly flexible.
You can also look at nylon. I didn’t see any issues when I was etching it.

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Mylar works great for stencils.
Lucent by Rowmark is a thin, flexible, “modified acrylic” material that is great for stencils (and it has the neon-edge-lit quality of acrylic, which is neat)

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Any recommendations for slightly stiffer stuff? I want to make some replacements for thr drawers in my Akro-Mills parts storage, but the 1/8” acrylic is too thick snd too stiff to make a reliable latch mechanism