I know this is more of a laser question, but you guys have a wealth of knowledge, and some of you may have tried cutting thin metal. I know we are only supposed to use coated thin metal, but have any of you guys cut clock hands, or hands for a clock? I build clocks as art and want to design hands. I am somewhat limited by what I can buy and can’t seem to find a video that doesn’t involve hand cutting with small coping saws. (very time consuming)
Let know if you guys cut any small metal pieces. We have a 100w Thunder, at a maker space.
A simple reply is no. I’ve managed to engrave and cut aluminum foil, like you use in the kitchen. I doubt you can expect much more. I engraved a small piece of stainless with my 43W co2, but it cost me the lens.
The issue seems to be that metal conducts lots of heat away from the impact point and the fact the a very high percentage of the beam is reflected exacerbates the issue.
I have a 60W fiber, engraves real nice, but it’s really not a cutting machine. You can, but it’s more like a deep engraving. Not that you can’t, but I don’t if I can help it.
These are done on my fiber. They were pretty dirty and a bit warped when I cut them out and took about 40 passes I think… not too long with the galvo.
I use them to mark the approximate lens length on the machines column.
Might look at a fiber machine… a lot of power isn’t necessarily going to buy you a lot with thinner metals… they all tend to heat up and can warp.
Money wise, a fiber is likely what you need even though I normally don’t recommend one for cutting… I don’t have a UV but they can also mark and engrave, so they could cut, but they don’t use heat.
