Tag: cutter

Laser cutting

First try at using the 50W CO2 laser cutter at the Iso Omena library. Material is 4mm Birch ply (K-rauta). I didn't have time to optimize the speed/power settings, so the edge-finish is quite burned, and a flame appears from time to time. There was a 3M tape-film (?model?) available, which when taped over the plywood-to-be-cut should reduce burning and flaming - but I didn't have time to try it.

Workflow: DXF files exported from CAD, the into Adobe Illustrator, set all linewidths to 0.01mm, then save as PDF, then print from Adobe Acrobat to the Epilog printer-driver, set speed/power for the material, send to the machine, set the (0,0) coordinate (top left) for the job, and press Go!

Lathe parting tool

I've ordered a bunch of tooling from RDG (http://www.rdgtools.co.uk/), Chronos (http://www.chronos.ltd.uk/), and CTC (http://www.ctctools.biz/) for the lathe. There's at least one more of these deep-discount tool stores: http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/. These stores sell tools of mostly Chinese origin, but I think they will do just fine for hobby use, and the price-level certainly is only a fraction of what European tooling costs. If anyone knows more of these let me know!

The first things to arrive were a set of center drills and this Glanze parting tool from Chronos. I've settled on only a "Myford-size" T00 tool-post which has holders for max. 13 mm tools.