Laser Cut Push Stick

This is interesting. Is this 3/4” MDF?. How wide is the kerf and does the laser give a clean flat edge? I see the charred sides, is it deep and could they be easily sanded off? How fast is the process?
Thanks.

Howdy,

I used 1/4” MDF for this slim model of push stick – I needed something thin.

Two or more can be glued-up together for a thicker push stick. If I was going to make a thicker one, I’d put in some mortises for splines to align them. I use splines a lot – check my other projects.

The kerf is estimated to be between .007” and .01” – it depends on the material, amount of burn time (due to speed you set) and amount of energy/power being used. For most cases, there is almost no kerf – it depends on the material.

The charred edges can be dealt with, when desired, by sanding. I prefer to always leave the charred edges intact – there is no black soot when I use the correct type of MDF. I will have to write a Lumberjocks article about how I chased down MDF issues.

Each of these 1/4” thick pieces took about 2 minutes to burn on a 60-watt laser.

MDF is pretty dense – usually more so than plywood (that I’ve seen), and takes more energy to burn-through. I have seen some folks cut 1/2” or thicker MDF, but it may take multiple passes and result in wider kerfs, since more material is burned each time.

TG

-- ToGoMan ------ "No ONE of us knows as much as ALL of us." (anon.) ----

Also. I have some colleagues who have used baking soda instead of sand and blasted the dark edges on laser-cut pieces. I have not tried this myself, but it sounds like it could be very effective.

-- ToGoMan ------ "No ONE of us knows as much as ALL of us." (anon.) ----

Oh. And the edges are very smooth.

-- ToGoMan ------ "No ONE of us knows as much as ALL of us." (anon.) ----