Hiya,
I’ve got a project which involves cutting a groove to recess some rope in the board.
Anyone get any experience doing this? What did you use?
I’m thinking a router may make a mess of the cork, haven’t tried it yet.
Cheers,
Stu
Not done that. I’ve cut plenty of cork tiles. How thick is the cork? What’s the size? Is it already framed on a board? Photos would help. Also any pics indicating the design. I really really wouldn’t use a router for that. A sharp Stanley knife is enough for cutting tiles. If you wanted something fancy and engrave and cut rather than simple cut, you could maybe use the laser cutter engraver. (Certainly better if cutting curves).
If you want to use the laser and you aren’t inducted on it yet, I want to get in some practice time on it. If ok with lasertechs, and they ok using cork in it, could do that together. But it would need some trial and error to get the right settings.
Laser always leaves those characteristic burned edges and you have to through cut, stack, or fiddle with setting to get it just right.
There’s definitely youtube videos of folks cnc cutting cork so I would think you could route it with sharp tooling either on the cnc or skillfully by hand/template
Post will be removed… sorry.
Why
Dremel would work too. Scorching might not matter much if for recessing a rope (?). If CNC, desktop one would be too small probably. Looks like you talked yourself into helping @stu on the big CNC. 
Lasercutting cork is normal, it should be on the setting sheet above the laser PC.
I made a silly joke that sounded funny in my head but when I read it… I thought: nah.
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Lol
Thanks all for the replies.
This was a project that my partner was working on and she got around to trying it out yesterday.
We successfully drilled holes for each end of the rope using a sharp wood bit at high speed. I suggested we just lay the rope on the top and epoxy it, rather than trying to recess it and risk messing it up. It seems to have come out well, at least she’s happy, so I’m happy.
Next is putting some lettering on it, we’re going to use decals but I think the laser would be better if I had the time to get to the space this week.
We have some spare cork boards and I’ve just done my laser induction so I may have a play in the future. I’ll create another thread after my experiments with any lessons learnt and settings.
Thanks again,
Stu
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