suggestions/applications for an Epilog 45w laser engraver?

[Nigel Pugh]

Have a look at the laserproi.com website, different make of lasers used but at least it should give you some idea.

Dare say Rodney Gold may post to this thread, if he does then you will enough idea’s to last a lifetime.

Nigel

[Rodney Gold]

Ok , here goes , this listing/article I have written is NOT finished completely (will expand more sections) , but it should help!!!

1) Cut rubber foams or engrave them for box inserts , mount to wood for decorator type wall and fabric stamps (paint applied with a roller to cut shapes)

A lot of co’s produce instruments or tools and pack them in a case , the foams are cut to shape around the instrument which secures them in place – apart from which , cutting rubber foam with a die distorts it , a laser doesnt. Examples would be thin foam inserts for shoes , gaskets for an air cleaner and so forth. There is a huge demand for decorating type stamps , the images are generally hand cut , stuff like animals , letters etc. The laser will not only cut the foam but will deep engrave it with exceptional detail , the foams are adhered to flat wood blocks which act as a handle and then paint is applied with a roller , stamped on fabrics , walls and so forth. You use 10mm foams (available from most rubber supply houses) and can engrave them easily 5mm deep. Try various foams in respect of density – DO NOT use the harder rubbers sheets , very difficult to cut.

2) Engrave High temperature silicon foiling material for hot foiling dies

This is a high temp rubber bonded to an aluminium plate , engraved the same way you do stamps. The rubber can take a huge amount of heat , this is put on a machine that heats the die and passes a ribbon of heat sensitive foil under the die , the hot die “melts” the foil into the object where the letters stand out , used for printing metallics or colours onto various items like clothes hangers , pens , card and papers etc. Much like a stamp except you use foils for the ink. This is a VERY cheap way of printing large quantities of items. The Silicon is used for items that dont have dead flat surfaces as it does have some “squish”. Its a form of hot stamping die. The downside is the price of the material (I think laserbits has it) and the fact that the dies are far shorter lived than magnesium , brass or stell dies (you can do metal dies using the etching method desribed later)

3) Apply mylar vinyl (the shiny gold or silver – no need to use expensive “laser” vinyl) to metal , laser away the vinyl and then dunk the plate in a pyrex dish containing warm Ferric chloride which etches and chemically engraves the plate (use something like handy andy on a toothbrush to remove any glue residue before etching)

This is an EXTREMELY potent application , I have posted quite a bit on etching and exactly how to do it. This allows the laser to chemically engrave just about ANY metal and get precison you cant even hope to achieve with a rotary type engraver.
Look here : https://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.p … hing#19658
Here are examples of etched plates
http://www.tokerbros.co.za/final%20wae% … 205967.jpg

4) Cut rubber masks for the monumental engraving industry (they use em as sand blast resists)

The self adhesive rubber is available from sign suppliers , it stops the sand used when blasting from impacting the stone and thus only the areas you peel away are blasted , the rubber is difficult to cut as its thick , but a laser can do far better than a knife or vinyl cutter in this regard, Gives a far deeper engraving than just lasering the mable or granite and its much smoother , applys to the glass thing below. Yopu need NOT use rubber unless you are doing major depth blasting , you can use vinyls as well (laser friendly ones)

5) Use the mylar mask thing on glass as a blast resist and get into “sand carving”

Sand “carving” is selectively removing different parts of a mask and blasting , for example this was done in 2 stages , we removed the deeper bits first (the veins of the leaf) and blasted away and then removed the shallower bits and continued sand blasting the glass , the deeper bits got deeper and we ended up with a 3 D type image. it’s not a great pic – but here it is
http://www.tokerbros.co.za/sandcarv1.jpg
This was only a 2 stage mask , you can use many stages to get almost true 3d – you have to work out the cuts you make , IE what to strip and when.

6)Use 1mm UHI acrylic (ultra high impact) for stuff that must be springy but not break , bookmarks , money clips , memo clips etc

UHI is a great foer very thin acrylic that can be bent and springs back into shape without cracking as normal acrylic would , its cheap and its real tough and its laser friendly
http://www.tokerbros.co.za/final%20wae% … k-6142.jpg
The part that bendds on that bookmark would have snapped the first time it was used if it was either cast or extruded aluminium. Very good stuff to make helmet visors out of or to use in place of polycarbonate which is difficult to laser cut , it can take almost the same impact as polycarbonate would and the thicker stuff works well for vehicle security screens and so forth. Its a stack cheaper than polycarbonate too – avialable at most perspex sheeting supply houses.

7) Tap the fabric industry , seal cut synthetics (sealed edges) , cut backs and appliques for the embroidery trade , engrave logos onto denim jeans , track suit tops etc

Denim lasers fantastically , a lot of fabrics do and there is a huge market our there for custom graphics on jeans and jackets etc
http://www.tokerbros.co.za/new_page_23.htm , apart from which the laser works very well to both cut and WELD synthetic type materials. If you defocus the beam and vector engrave a line over 2 pieces that are stacked , with a bit of experimantation , you actually get a WELD. what you do is tack 2 pieces and focus properly and vector cut them , then DEFOCUS and run the same vector line , you get a really nice clean frayless edge and the pieces can be properly welded on the 2nd pass – you can make fabric pockets and so on. Laser welding works with a LOT of other thin plastic films and so forth.
there are a lot of industrial uses too , like cutting synthetic carpet material to shape , lasering logos in it etc.

8)Die cut sheets of labels (like wine labels) for prototyping or offer a business card cutting service where you laser cut what a die cutter cant.

Often labels etc need to be cut to shape , a die to do so for short runs or prototyping is real expensive , you can do the same with a laser , IE cut out the shapes. Dies consist of thin blades bent to shape , often you cant bend the cutting rule used in dies at very sharp angles etc , a laser does not have this constraint.The problem is registration on the printed sheets , but most printers DO print registration marks you can index to and do supply the die lines (cutting patterns) with respect to those registration marks. The downside is cutting thicker paper and boards produce a discoloured edge – one can avoid that by using nitrogen in the air assist line or using a short focal point lens which concentrates the spot size , along with that , reduce your PPI to a low figure so the boards almost “perforate”

9) Matboard and the photographic trade , cut unusual shapes in mat board and engrave it for photographers.

The matt board is the stuff that surrounds photos in frames , often photographers and framers want it cut in unusual or complex shapes which they cant do , for example they might want a custom oval cut in a square piece to frame a particular photo. Most framing places also often want labels on their frames , like a description of a photo etc , spectrum light and thin flexibrass are ideal for this , you can pick up extra business from framers

10) Lighting – the laser is ideal to do many finishing or fabricating processes for the custom lighting industry , vellum , parchement , paper and other types of shade , transluscent acrylic etc etc

This is a huge market , light design is big and you can do all manner of lighting accesories with a laser , go to the local lighting showroom for ideas here, have a look at stuff and think “how could I do THAT” with a laser”. Perspex is very popular as when engraved and illuminated the engraving “glows”. A small line bender and some glueing practice will enable you to build VERY complex lighting fixtures. Shades are also a good line , photo engraving into stuff like parchments or even the felxibrass with the gold underlayer work well , the light passes thru the gold substrate where the top cap is lasered (white too) and when the lamp is switched on , the engraving lights up , works with card too. There are specific acrylics available from Degusa , coloured stuff that is specific for LED and other illumination where it diffuses the light evenly , great stuff to work with. Interior designers are a good source to tap for this type of stuff.

11) Make your own coated metals

Polish brass , spray with clear laquer and then a colour , experiment with paint effects like marbeling etc.
You can not only do this with metals , you can do this with acrylics and many other substrates , the laser basically vaporises the paints and exposes whats under – it’s real cheap to try this , only requires a can of spray paint. We had a huge amount of labels to do , multiple 1000’s in various colours , we just took automotive matt spray paint and sprayed sheets of ABS , the laser cut and engraved this real well at a HUGE savings over stuff like Rowmark etc. Turned out it was even more scratch and solvent resistant than the commercial stuff and we had total control over colours. Many sites on the internet re paint effects and finishes that can be put to good effect on whatever you want to laser.

12) Make a STUNNING business card for yourself , like out of flexibrass etc – make it demonstrate instantly what you can do.
Thjis is the first impression people have of you , yes it’s expensive , but the potential; rewards are huge. No one EVER throws these away and the WOW factor has to be seen to be believed. You will get work form others with this , we often suggest to a client to have 100-500 of these done with their 1000’s of cheapies and hand them out to select clients.
Heres a pic of ours.http://www.tokerbros.co.za/new%20pics/promo%203.jpg
and some of others we have done
http://www.tokerbros.co.za/business_cards.htm

13) Invest in a small perspex bender , they are a snap to use and than you can make all sorts of objects , like cellphone cradles , memo holders , pen holders , etc etc. Being able to bend and glue acrylics can open HUGE avenues and it really is NOT rocket science!!!.
This is a VAST field that you can get into , a line bender is cheap – you can even make your own!!
Look hee for examples
http://www.tokerbros.co.za/promo%20stuff.htm
and especially here
http://www.tokerbros.co.za/acrylic_fabrication.htm

14) Make embossing dies for your spectrum stickers , you need a male and female , easy to do if you are already engraving the sticker , put sticker in between the 2 dies and press , voila , a 3d sticker (great for certificate seals etc)
This is the same as making notary seals and is well documented on various laser websites.

15) Perspex makes an AMAZING master for spun cast metal products (lowish melting point metals spun in cavities in high temp rubber) , the perpsex gets distorted in the vulcanizing process but the moulds are perfect. All our medals are done this way , but there are tons of other promo products you can spin – find a decent spin casting operation and go to it.

Essentiall spin casting is a low melting point metal poured into high temp rubber moulds , the moulds are made by pouring liquid rubber around a master (original) and then subjecting it to heat (vulcanising) to make it hard , then splitting it , removing the original and then pouring in the molten metal into the mould. Its a cheap way to make metal items and the biggest problem the spin caster have is to make the originals , which you can do easily. The bigger problem is that the moulds are big (like big pancakes) and they can multiples of one item in the same mould so they spin lets say , 20 items at a time (the moulds spin like a record and the metal is poured inton the centre and spins out to the edges to fill the cavities – hence spin)
So what a lot of casters do is make one original , make a single cavity mould and then cast a lot of those to use as originals for the BIG moulds. The hassle is that the new oiginals have now lost definition and shrunk and the spin off them will lose more definition and shrink more. A pex master on a laser can be repeated 10x easily , so now the big mould contians all CRISP originals – leading to a far better product when in production.

16) Buy clock movements and make your own hands and faces etc , use your imagination and come up with something different.
17) Reverse spray clear acrylic and reverse engrave it , you can then make your own background colours , fill the engraving and have a totally protected sign real cheap
1 NEVER clean lasered acrylic , especially extruded , with ANY solvent , guaranteed to develop stress cracks. soapy water is best.
19) If you can set your lasers PPI to low values , you can perforate stuff.
20) Use a cheap deskjet and deskjet vinyl to print shaped decals , send the cut to your laser and register and kiss cut , you have then got an amazing print and die cut operation. You can overlay clear or matt vinyl on the sheet and die cut thru both , giving you an overlaminated decal
21) Use the paper based vinyl application tape on glass , it acts as a blast resist – same when doing paint filling in wood or other stuff where you want to protect a surface.
22) Neoprene (wetsuit material) cuts and engraves excellently , make branded sweatbands , mouse pads etc , lanyard loops etc. use bright flourescent colours
23) Combine materials !!!!!!!!!! Be creative , for example when making a upmarket sign , use a 5mm black acrylic backing , use a piece of silver/gold flexi cut slightly smaller atop that and engrave some stuff , use 3mm clear reverse engraved for other stuff , cut 4 small holes in each sheet and bolt together all 3 layers.
24) formicas engrave and cut beautifully , they are cheap materials and are EXCEPTIONALLY durable (used on kitchen counters) , they can be wax filled etc and come in a zillion finishes and colours
25) Use gilding wax to fill engraved acrylic with the most beautiful golds , silvers and metallic colours , rub over the acrylic , use a toothbrush to work into grooves etc and then use a block with some cloth moistend in turpentine wrapped around it to remove excess. Even suitable for outdoor stuff (that rubb n buff wax works ok)
One can never make money with a laser by doing a gift or 2 etc , you need to manufacture your own stuff or get high volume branding – think laterally. DON’T make cheap stuff or brand cheap products , the laser is an expensive machine. A local guy here was doing tons of laser cut thin wood stuff for craft shops etc , he sort of made a living but messed up his laser with resins and smoke and all the other nasties wood emits.

[Russell Pavey]

Wow!

Nigel you were not wrong and thanks for the link – very useful. I really do think that there is a lifetimes worth of ideas.

Rodney thank you so much for such a detailed and informative response – I really didn’t expect such useful info on my first real post.

So many different applications – I don’t know where to begin!

I really like the sand carving explanation and think that you’d be able to produce some really nice products using it. I’m sure after some digging on the site i’ll be able to find some info on the kit needed.

I also like the idea of being able to mark on fabrics. I will experiment with your welding idea.

I let you know I how get on.

Again thanks so much.

Russ