I use my Glowforge for cutting pieces for small scale dollhouse miniatures. It’s great and I get nice precise pieces but I’m having trouble with some of the smaller parts being blown away towards the honeycomb tray door by the machine’s fan. Sometimes it messes with the rest of the cut and sometimes the pieces just disappear completely. These are pieces that I can’t put a little sprue on because they need to fit all sides precisely. The are too tiny (¼" squares for a parquet floor or thin strips cut out of 1/32" thick basswood) to put magnets on and cutting them out of thicker wood would throw them out of scale. Any suggestions?
People use something called a Seklema Mat
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Or the poor man’s Seklema mat: Re-positional adhesive lightly sprayed onto a piece of extra plywood/draftboard/cardboard/whatever is flat. (test your settings so the cut only goes through your actual material and not all the way through the bottom waste layer)
or
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Seklema mats aren’t cheap, but they are two-sided. You can also cut them down if you end up with a larger one. If you’re doing a lot of these, it’s probably a good investment.
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Also there are 3mm Cubic neodymium magnets, they’d work for your 1/4” squares, though alignment might be tricky. I use them all the time in layered boxes.
Unfortunately I can’t seem to find them on amazon at the moment but I did find these tiny guys:
300PCS Fastener Decor Craft Miniature Holder Magnets for Hobbies,Crafts,Warhammer 40k Round Disc - 2mmx1mm https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RTQW58Z/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_gQ8ZEbY3RV7A8o
These might be more practical, 2mm thick instead of 1:
300pcs 3mm Small Magnet for Crafts Tiny Magnets Miniature Magnets Small Round Magnets, Little Magnet Tiny Magnets,magnit,mini Magnets for Crafts(disc:3x2mm) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0819JZF66/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_XU8ZEb7E73ZM9
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I have been getting ~3mm neodymium magnets from these people:
(They have a range of shapes and sizes.)
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Big magnets with a magnetic field that that reaches an inch up can mess with your laser but several tiny ones 9mm apart glued to a thin material will not,
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This question is outside our team’s scope. I’ve moved it to the Beyond the Manual so the discussion can continue there.
Cool resource. They do seem to have the 3mm cubes that I like.
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