Can I cut real wood on the laser cutter?

@lasertechs

I’m wanting to make some small lamp bases out of Ash, Bloodwood, Zebrano and a few other exotic woods 3-5 mm thick to try out our new lighting electronics board with different woods.

Would that be OK?

Although I’m a lasertech I’m by no means a definitive authority but: you should be ok with ash - but other more exotic woods you need to be a bit careful about the resin or oil content as there is a fire risk for woods which have a lot of this.

Engraving designs on them will likely be ok - but cutting you need to be more careful with. Multiple passes will probably be needed to limit charring. Depending on what you want to do it might be better to cut the pieces out first then do any engraving on them afterwards.

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I see no technical reason to avoid doing it.
Perhaps heightened vigilance of flames!
Let us know how it goes!

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Ya the Bloodwood is an issue on the Glowforge in terms of charring hence why I want to try it on the TroTech. When I did the induction I was well impressed with just how little charring there was vs. same ply on the Glowforge so wanted to have a play with real wood while I wait for the basic wood working induction :slight_smile:

I always do little test hole tests before I cut anything :smiley:

If you can , do longer test lines and curves - that’s when you’ll start to get heat buildup that you wouldn’t notice with just a small dot.

Generally also multiple fast high power passes are likely to be better than fewer low power passes - again reduces how much heat builds up in a small area during cutting.

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