Thank You for the kind words.

Wait till you see my new Gantry Router I am building, I just got it moving this last week X=2700mm Y=1700mm Z=600mm Has a belly pan cut out that will handle a 600mm diameter log 2500mm long. (not as shiny as Dave's) It will take me the rest of the winter to finalize it.
So far the Top speed about 6500mm per minute using rolled ball screws and linear 16mm dia rails. I designed and built it because I need to create a railing on my front porch. Thought Id do some wildlife artwork for effect, after all it is a log cabin. Now that I got it moving It got me to Insulate and panel my new shop (and I had to picked a hot week to do that) and get it ready for my new home away from home.

If nothing else I sure learn a lot from every one that shares their knowledge and experiences.
Fun to enjoy what you do.
Keep up the great thread.

Thank you Ya-Nvr-No,

Don't forget that we want to see pictures of your new build (shiny or not). 

Tweakie.

Something I perhaps didn’t cover very well earlier in this thread is “Air Assist”. This plays quite a key role when using the laser in two main areas and is, in my opinion, essential.

1) By directing the smoke / particles away from the focus lens this prevents contamination and the need for constant cleaning of this rather delicate component. (The lenses used at 10,6um are usually made from Zinc Selenide and AV coated – they scratch easily and are extremely brittle so the less they are handled the better).

2) When cutting anything that carbonises the air assist is used to remove the deposit from the bottom of the kerf and thereby increase the cutting / engraving efficiency.

I have chosen to use a co-axial air assist, for the most part, and have a 3mm diameter exit nozzle for both the beam and the air. This essentially pressurises the focus lens cavity and prevents the ingress of smoke and small particles. I use 3 different air supplies, the first is a low level, double acting, aquarium aerator which is always on whenever the laser is powered up, the second which is Tee’d into the same air line is a larger koi pond pump and the third is the exhaust side of a twin cylinder “Roc-r” pump (which is also used to power my vacuum table). All three of these pumps are oil-less and between them provide various air volumes for most applications.
Additionally I have a separate nozzle (not co-axial), which can be fitted when required, and can be used to direct a relatively high pressure “shop air” directly into the kerf. This is only used occasionally (when cutting plywood) and has the disadvantage that the high pressure / volume enables the fumes to escape the existing air extraction system (bad smell of burnt wood in the workshop).

When the little insects, shown in the earlier post, were cut I was using just the aquarium aerator, any greater volume of air would have scattered the individual pieces everywhere as no tabs were used. 

Tweakie.

Now I really don’t want my wife to find out about this but, after a lot of research, I have discovered that once these tasty little morsels have been laser cut they can be cooked to perfection using GHD “Pink Orchid” hair straightners (although the “Gold Classic” work OK the “Pink Orchid” are best). 

Tweakie.

(I should perhaps mention that nothing was wasted here as my faithful little helper rapidly disposed of all the offcuts).

What is it? Must be a UK thing!

I must admit that I hadn’t really thought about it but yes I suppose it is a UK thing. 
The clue is in the shape – Its Ham (or called bacon when it’s fried).

There is enough serious stuff going on in life so I find that doing something completely daft, perhaps to bring a smile, every now and again makes a break. 

Tweakie.

hell I thought it was chocolate or a thin brownie. Never crossed my mind it was Ham, even though I could see it was a porker. Cute idea. What is it again that you drink? LOL

Lol. Bacon scented hair. You might have stumbled upon something, Tweak.

Hi Sam,

Thanks for the heads-up, in retrospect I don’t think the ‘bacon scented hair’ is going to go down too well so I am thinking that washing off the GHD’s thoroughly in WD40 after use may be the way forward. 

Tweakie.

Something that has become more popular during the last couple of years is personalised paper / card cut wedding and party invitations / cards etc http://paperorchidstationery.com/ . Traditionally these items were ‘die cut’ and we had to choose from just those variants available but lasers have removed the ‘tooling costs and limitations’ and are just so brilliant at cutting paper and card that individual and personalised greetings are now so easily created and of course, affordable.

The following example, obviously not for weddings, is an old and perhaps weird Mexican paper cut which I found interesting and just had to reproduce http://www.craftsmanspace.com/free-patterns/miscellaneous-illustrations.html . Using a federate of 700mm/min this took me just over 14 minutes to cut and indicates why the galvo scanning type of laser heads are usually used for this type of work http://www.synrad.com/Products/marking.htm . They would, for example, cut something like this in just a few seconds so the end product would be economic to make in quantity and should yield a respectable profit on time and investment for the maker.

Tweakie.