Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Blackhawk
Nov 15, 2004

I built a large laser cutter for my partner to cut synthetic fabric on, but also decided to have a go at using it for a bit of a craft project by making a step stool out of scrap plywood I had left over.

This is just a trial assembly with the parts pushed together but not glued, also missing two pieces that somehow came out undersized despite the entire process being computer controlled from design to manufacture... Even so I was able to stand on it which is a good start.



My entire garage reeks of burning wood now though so honestly I kinda regret making it! The laser has an extraction system but it doesn't go far enough outside currently so a lot of the smoke was blowing back in and the cut wood also stinks. I think the stool will be ok once I sand and finish it with some kind of polyurethane coating but the garage might take some time to air out.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe
I'm guessing that's plywood? You should be aware that plywood (and MDF, OSB, and other manufactured wood products) contain chemicals that are hazardous to inhale when burnt, such as formaldehyde. You should wear a respirator with VOC filter cartridges, and do your best to contain the fumes.

Olothreutes
Mar 31, 2007

There's also the standard "protect your eyes from laser damage" warning that goes with laser cutters, homemade or not. Chances are the plans you followed are safer than some of the Temu level cheapo cutters but it's still something to be aware of.

Blackhawk
Nov 15, 2004

Didn't follow any plans, just designed it and made it myself (bought the bare motion hardware as a kit though) but I'm an engineer who has done some factory automation work in the past that involved building a large YAG laser welder so I'm pretty conscious about keeping my eyeballs intact.



It's fully enclosed with a safety switch on the door to enable the laser and a small window of acrylic rated to block the wavelength of laser I'm using plus I bought some proper safety glasses rather than using the random non-certified ones they include in the kit. I have some gas struts on the way to hold the door open but for now it's just getting propped open with a bit of aluminium extrusion lol.

Definitely need to be better with the fumes though, I have a 1HP dust extractor sucking air out through the laser bed but I need a longer exhaust hose to run outside so the smoke doesn't just blow straight back in through the door.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


Blackhawk posted:

Didn't follow any plans, just designed it and made it myself (bought the bare motion hardware as a kit though) but I'm an engineer who has done some factory automation work in the past that involved building a large YAG laser welder so I'm pretty conscious about keeping my eyeballs intact.



It's fully enclosed with a safety switch on the door to enable the laser and a small window of acrylic rated to block the wavelength of laser I'm using plus I bought some proper safety glasses rather than using the random non-certified ones they include in the kit. I have some gas struts on the way to hold the door open but for now it's just getting propped open with a bit of aluminium extrusion lol.

Definitely need to be better with the fumes though, I have a 1HP dust extractor sucking air out through the laser bed but I need a longer exhaust hose to run outside so the smoke doesn't just blow straight back in through the door.

Is that 1/2" plywood you cut with it? What's the feed/travel rate like? How wide of a cut/kerf does it burn?

Blackhawk
Nov 15, 2004

Kaiser Schnitzel posted:

Is that 1/2" plywood you cut with it? What's the feed/travel rate like? How wide of a cut/kerf does it burn?

It's 9mm plywood, so about 3/8"? Cutting at 8mm/sec and 80% power for 2 passes. Kerf is about 0.25 to 0.3mm.

Rapulum_Dei
Sep 7, 2009
Ok if lasering is legit I made some game box inserts that, despite boxes.py and the laser doing the work, I am pleased with…

Only registered members can see post attachments!

keep it down up there!
Jun 22, 2006

How's it goin' eh?

I do a lot of laser work as well but figured this wasn't the ideal place to post it in the past.

As my business picks up I find the sanding process is slowing me down the most (doesn't it always). I am curious if anyone has tried sanding small 3mm thick plywood parts on a drum sander. I really just need a single light pass with 220ish grit to clear off any residue and make the parts feel nice.

My parts are as small as 20mm x 20mm x 3mm.

keep it down up there! fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Mar 20, 2024

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

I would say the laser stuff has crossover with like the 3d printing thread and other things like that, but IMO if you're working with wood and this is the wood working thread then :justpost: your wood work!

keep it down up there!
Jun 22, 2006

How's it goin' eh?

Yeah fair. Since I sell stuff its always a tight line of sharing and not being a schill.

For more details, I make a lot of board game accessories from veneered plywood. Some of the parts are small gears with numbers engraved on them. Examples of the type of items:




Currently I use a ROB sander, which isn't awful but if I can increase productivity with a thickness sander that would be nice. Lee Valley has a Laguna one I was eyeing.
https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop/tools/power-tools/sanders/115861-laguna-supermax-16-32-drum-sander-with-open-stand?item=03Z1632
But that's a huge investment if its going to ruin the parts or send them flying.

Kaiser Schnitzel
Mar 29, 2006

Schnitzel mit uns


keep it down up there! posted:

Yeah fair. Since I sell stuff its always a tight line of sharing and not being a schill.

For more details, I make a lot of board game accessories from veneered plywood. Some of the parts are small gears with numbers engraved on them. Examples of the type of items:




Currently I use a ROB sander, which isn't awful but if I can increase productivity with a thickness sander that would be nice. Lee Valley has a Laguna one I was eyeing.
https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop/tools/power-tools/sanders/115861-laguna-supermax-16-32-drum-sander-with-open-stand?item=03Z1632
But that's a huge investment if its going to ruin the parts or send them flying.
That's very cool.

Are you sanding individual pieces or could you leave tabs on the parts and just sand the whole piece? If you need to do them individually, you would probably need to secure them down first, tho I am not super familiar with drum sanders where the platen moves-the ones I've used had feed rollers at the top like a planer so small stuff definitely wouldn't work. I suspect fixing them down individually with double sides tape or whatever would take longer than just a quick swip with an orbital sander. If you do the same parts all the time tho you might be able to make a board with cutouts for each individual piece that they fit in to run thru the sander.

Elysium
Aug 21, 2003
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
What about an oscillating belt sander? You just turn it on and then rub each piece on it for a second, do the other side, then grab another piece. Might be a little tricky not to sand your fingertips on some smaller pieces maybe.

Elysium fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Mar 20, 2024

A Wizard of Goatse
Dec 14, 2014

yeah i drum sand whole sheets of laser feedstock (cause it's much much cheaper to make the nice stuff from scratch, mostly) but doing it to individual little parts coming out the other end is going to mostly just lose them. Masking tape to keep the tar off the pieces or hand sanding a finished assembly will do you better.

A Wizard of Goatse fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Mar 20, 2024

keep it down up there!
Jun 22, 2006

How's it goin' eh?

Appreciate the insight everyone.

All the parts are small, and yeah taping them down would be more work than doing it by hand. I don't mask with tape for the same reason, weeding is just way slower than hitting them 1 by 1 on the ROB.

Sounds like sticking with hand sanding is the best bet.

For anyone curious, here are some finished items.




I mostly make addons for games like Gloomhaven, MTG, D&D, etc. Looking to expand greatly this year now that I have a good workflow and a new laser.

My Spirit Otter
Jun 15, 2006


CANADA DOESN'T GET PENS LIKE THIS

SKILCRAFT KREW Reppin' Quality Blind Made American Products. Bitch.
what kind of laser are you using?

Meow Meow Meow
Nov 13, 2010

keep it down up there! posted:

Appreciate the insight everyone.

All the parts are small, and yeah taping them down would be more work than doing it by hand. I don't mask with tape for the same reason, weeding is just way slower than hitting them 1 by 1 on the ROB.

Sounds like sticking with hand sanding is the best bet.

For anyone curious, here are some finished items.




I mostly make addons for games like Gloomhaven, MTG, D&D, etc. Looking to expand greatly this year now that I have a good workflow and a new laser.

Cool stuff, I wonder if one of these V-drum sanders or flatmaster sander would work, you run the piece over like a jointer, so it would be pretty quick to sand doing one pass with a push pad. I've only ever seen home built ones, but appears like you could also get commercial versions.

https://stockroomsupply.com/collections/flatmasters-and-diy-drum-kits

deimos
Nov 30, 2006

Forget it man this bat is whack, it's got poobrain!
A flap/brush sander would probably work. (you'll have to figure out some work holding)

deimos fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Mar 21, 2024

keep it down up there!
Jun 22, 2006

How's it goin' eh?

My Spirit Otter posted:

what kind of laser are you using?

100W Aeon Mira 9.

I was using a Glowforge Basic at the start. It died after about 250 hours or so.
Their repair facility was being moved at the time so they sent me a new unit for $750 rather than dealing with a repair.

I was paranoid after that and never ran it at full power, as I had read it lowers the tube life, and tracked every job time length in Excel. It died again after 197 hours. Now they want $1700 to ship it back, have it repaired, and then shipped back to me which could take a few weeks.
I only paid $2400 originally. So that was the last straw. I 100% regret ever buying that thing.

Luckily when things started to pick up I was already researching replacements just in case. In the end I went with an Aeon Mira 9. A huge upgrade for sure (that Im still paying off).

A large reason for it was their Canadian location is very local to me and they can overnight parts/handle support in person. Ive been using it rather heavily since August with zero issues and very happy with it.

Meow Meow Meow posted:

Cool stuff, I wonder if one of these V-drum sanders or flatmaster sander would work, you run the piece over like a jointer, so it would be pretty quick to sand doing one pass with a push pad. I've only ever seen home built ones, but appears like you could also get commercial versions.

https://stockroomsupply.com/collections/flatmasters-and-diy-drum-kits

deimos posted:

A flap/brush sander would probably work. (you'll have to figure out some work holding)

These do seem more ideal for what I need. Especially that kit. I bet I could make the opening much smaller and quickly pass items over it with a push block.

Thanks!

keep it down up there! fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Mar 21, 2024

deimos
Nov 30, 2006

Forget it man this bat is whack, it's got poobrain!

keep it down up there! posted:

These do seem more ideal for what I need. Especially that kit. I bet I could make the opening much smaller and quickly pass items over it with a push block.

Thanks!

This is a very expensive one and way overkill, but this is a good introduction video to the style I have used: https://youtu.be/bNaH8h83bxs

the yeti
Mar 29, 2008

memento disco



Goons I very much underestimated the tenacity of that goddamn varnish when I started this project but I’m making ok progress.



Having a better feel for the wood I think I just haven’t to this point been scraping nearly enough to avoid clogging a bunch of sanding disks.

I can’t work this out though, this is what I’m scraping off and I can’t tell if it’s varnish, wood, or both. It seems like it goes from curlies and ribbons to fine dust as more comes off and that’s how I’ve been judging it ready to sand.

keep it down up there!
Jun 22, 2006

How's it goin' eh?

Hard to tell for sure based on just shavings but the base still looks finished to me.

Be sure to scrape with the grain, if you get long clean shavings that are lighter than the previous layer/finish you should be headed in the right direction.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

ReelBigLizard
Feb 27, 2003

Fallen Rib
Old BLO or similar oil finish maybe?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply