Laser engraver/cutter ideas and experiences - it's here and i'm cutting things!

WezV · February 2023

I am thinking about treating myself to a new toy. I don't think I can quite stretch to a CNC router just yet, but might be able to stretch to a laser engraver/cutter in the next few months, all depends how much of my bonus the tax man leaves me.

I still want to build guitars by hand as much as possible, but my eyesight is deteriorating, some things I used to be able to do easily are now a struggle. I'm wondering if this is something that can pick up a lot of the precision work, whilst still doing a lot by hand

The obvious one is making accurate templates, jigs and cutting inlays/logos in various materials. I could also consider using it for many other decorative elements, and possibly even tasks such as marking out of wood with a bit more accuracy than a pencil and my eyesight allows.

I am looking at something like the Atomstack X7 . it's a 40x41cm work area, but extendable to 85x41cm so could work for most guitar sizes and claims to cut up to 15mm. I likely wouldn't push it past 6-8mm for most things I have in mind

Any experiences of these cheaper engravers/cutters? Any ideas what other clever luthiery bits I could use it for?

WezV · March 2023

these are some vids convincing me it isn't a daft idea.

WezV · March 2023

TTony · March 2023

@Simo ;

Simo · March 2023

I only have experience with a CO2 laser, I'm the first to admit that my knowledge of diode lasers is limited.. but from what I understand, those type of diode laser kits are perfect for engraving jobs, but they massively lack the power to cut thicker material (unless it’s Balsa wood).

To cut thick pieces of ply/mdf/acrylic, you would need to take multiple passes at very slow speeds, which can lead to a poor surface finish and/or burning. Adding an air assist will help this to some extent, (I would recommend air assist, even for cutting thinner stock or engraving work), but you still might struggle.

In short, if you intend to use it for mainly engraving work, and perhaps making inlays or logos, then I'd say go for it. But for cutting templates etc, I personally don't think they're the right tool for the job.

WezV · March 2023

I don't think i will have the budget for CO2, but do get what you are saying which is why i am approaching this cautiously.

Air assist is already on the shopping list. Most of the things I have in mind for cutting are 6mm or less, and I am looking at machines that claim to be able to achieve 15-20mm in solid wood

as much as I hate to promote a channel called "guns and guitars", he does have some good vids on this. I posted a template making and engraving one above

Here he claims to do 3/8" maple in one pass - that's with a 10w laser

Simo · March 2023

Wow, that is impressive.. I've watched videos of similar powered diode lasers struggling to cut balsa wood that thick.

TTony · March 2023

WezV said:

I still want to build guitars by hand as much as possible, but my eyesight is deteriorating, some things I used to be able to do easily are now a struggle.

Have you tried bifocals for the workshop? And/or a headloupe?

My eyesight is worsening too and I've found both of the above help for different tasks.

WezV said:

Any experiences of these cheaper engravers/cutters? Any ideas what other clever luthiery bits I could use it for?

Although I did do a whole body on my CNC - carved top, cavities, all the mounting screw holes and cutting out the body shape, some of those tasks would have been much quicker/easier with a router, so I'd not bother with CNC'ing the larger cavities or the cut out again.

The accuracy you can achieve with the CNC still amazes me. You can cut to a fraction of a mm. So, great for doing the smaller templates, for inlay work, etc. On my last build, I CNC'd half the string-through holes from the top, then flipped the body over, aligned everything *very* carefully, and drilled the other half from the back. They met up to within 0.5mm (I could get a 2.5mm drill bit straight through the 3mm hole, whereas a 3mm drill bit got stuck half way through).

I'm intending to experiment with inlays (you can cut out both the inlay recess and the inlay itself), and with some different pickup rings, some carving shapes that would be difficult to do by hand.

But my CNC has spent more time working on other household projects rather than guitar building. Unless you're running a production line, it's an expensive option.

WezV · March 2023

The opticians did say I was not far off needing bifocals, which is fun at 42.I have been using a magnifying headset for for close up stuff recently. The real issue is damage to my retina which means I can't see straight lines in my dominant eye.

Anyone who sees me assess a guitar for setup will notice I still go straight to sighting the neck with my right eye, then have to switch to my left.

I would love to go CNC router, but it's out of range at the moment. I'm also thinking the 2D work for a laser will be a good step along the learning curve to 3D if I do later invest in more CNC stuff.

My initial thoughts for this was just small decorative engraving work from a little machine built for doing wooden spoons and the like, but it's grown a bit since seeing the results others are getting from those mid range machines. That last vid in my initial posts shows some impressive fine line inlay cutting.

I did have a mate do a bit for me about 20 years ago. He managed to turn some paua shell to dust, but he did make some nice engraved headplates and a few templates

A laser would likely get used for a lot of household stuff too, since I found myself making a 3mm ply sword at the last minute yesterday for world book day

TTony · March 2023

WezV said:

The opticians did say I was not far off needing bifocals, which is fun at 42

I’ve probably used them, in the workshop, since I was 50ish. They work there because usage tends to be up close detail work, or hunting round the workshop for that thing I know I have, but can’t find.

Normaltimes, I use varifocals now - so no obvious 2-lenses in the frame appearance.

Jez6345789 · March 2023

I would say go for it as there is a load of stuff you can do with one and you will find endless projects for it.

I got a hobby CNC before lockdown and it's great but I have recently bought the add-on Laser head which is based on the standard 10-watt LED diode approach rather than Co2. The Led version definitely needs the air assist option to do thicker materials and also be prepared that a lot of online videos are sped up but there are things it does a lot better than the cnc.
I would also say although the hobby cnc is not superfast you can happily leave it unattended and doing work. I feel less comfortable about running the laser without supervision fire risk etc and my friend burnt his garage down with his laser. Also, some type of fume extraction burning wood is probably 1000 times worse for you than saw dust LOL :-)

Ideally, I like having both hence the recent addition

WezV · March 2023

yeah, if I do get one there are considerations on where to locate it when in use. Somewhere I can monitor it whilst in use, have some extraction, and away from a house full of laser chasing cats

looks like it will be worth the extra to go to 10w laser with air assist and extended size if i do go this way... will have to see how much I have to spend.

PhilM · March 2023

I’ve got a 600x900 bed 100w CO2 at work and, while it’s incredibly useful, I can’t see much application for guitar related stuff beyond engraving and template making. You can’t cut PVC or anything vinyl (emits gases that are dangerous to you and the laser cutter), so pickguards are out. Max thickness for wood cutting (single pass - multi pass is messy in my experience) is around 10mm for ply and MDF. CNC is far more useful imho. No experience with diode lasers but these are aimed at the engraving end of things.

Ours is massive, but it does the work-related stuff (acrylic and PP rapid prototyping and small production runs) perfectly. The two of us who are trained to use it have a small sideline in bespoke gifts etc. I also engrave our band business cards with it!

m_c · March 2023

I meant to reply to this a couple days ago.
I only have a small 15W machine, which I use for engraving some products that are made from Beech, and I'd say it would only manage to reliably cut wood up to a couple mm thick. I have also tested it engraving some anodised aluminium, and it done OK at very slow speeds.

Laser diodes seem to have improved massively over the past few years, but they still won't match a CO2 laser.
I'm on the LaserGRBL facebook group, and some of the stuff posted done by laser diode machines is quite impressive.
Atomstack machines do seem well regarded, and is what I'd probably consider if I was in the market for a slightly more powerful machine.

WezV · March 2023

I definitely can't afford a CO2 laser or CNC router of reasonable size at this point. I have looked into used, but not really sure about that.

I was looking at the sculpfun s10 yesterday which can be had with extended base and air assist for about the £500 mark... but i wasn't as impressed by the results shown in some videos. The atomstack is a little more, but does seem to give viable results.

I'm not too worried about cutting scratchplate material, but would be happy if it could do templates for that

goldtop · March 2023

Do you have a maker-space near you? They may have one you can use to do some real-world tests before splashing out the cash.

The makespace here - in Cambridge https://equipment.makespace.org/ - has a laser. I joined up and went along and it was worth taking the training session to work out that a laser cutter would NOT be useful for me after all. So still I get a local company to laser cut thin mahogany panels for me. They've done some basic laser engraving, too.

WezV · March 2023

Sadly none near me I can find.

I've just spent an hour or two messing around in inkscape and laser grbl to make sure I understand the processes involved.

I managed to do a couple of simple but potentially useful things in that time.

A Fretboard engraving/cutting file, and a couple of pickup templates. I'm sure I will find the mistakes in them at a later date, but I'm gonna keep playing around with the programs and doing my research untill the bonus is paid

PhilKing · March 2023

I am starting to feel the need for a metal face Zemaitis type guitar with a dragon behind the bridge and on the upper bout, with the Tarot Card world between the pickups!

WezV · March 2023

PhilKing said:

I am starting to feel the need for a metal face Zemaitis type guitar with a dragon behind the bridge and on the upper bout, with the Tarot Card world between the pickups!

It's definitely something I was thinking of too, although I think that would be a multistep process of painting the metal, engrave through the coating, then chemically etch it. Finally strip the paint.

Something I plan on experimenting with if I get one.

WezV · March 2023

I'm about ready to pull the trigger now. It will likely be a Sculpfun S30 Pro, which is a 10w laser with included air assist. I can get that with extended work area and honeycomb bases within budget

I've been slowly teaching myself how to design more things in Inkscape ready for this.

The first project will be some logo discs cut from woods at about 3mm. Either engraving the logo, cutting it out of contrasting wood, or a mix of both.

I will also try making some 6mm pickup templates, marking out a fretboard and cutting some headstock facings. I have drawn some of each of those ready to go.

It will pay for itself quickly if any of that works out reasonably well

I also did a full design of a Zemaitis style guitar, which can be broken down into the individual components and tweaked as needed, like shown below, This was mainly as an exercise in producing a guitar plan in Inkscape.

WezV · March 2023

It's on its way

I have ordered:
Sculpfun s30 Pro 10w laser
Extension kit to give 935x400mm work area
2x honeycomb base panels.

That all came to £520

Additional to that I will need Lightburn software to take advantage of the automatic air assist this laser comes with, that is an extra £50 after a 30 day trial.

I will update this thread with successes and failures along the way

WezV · April 2023

First update. I ordered from Geekbuying, which stated items were in stock in a UK warehouse, and stated a 2-4 days shipping estimate.

What is less clear is that it can still take up to a week for them to process the order and dispatch the items before that 2-4 days starts.

So even though everything was in stock in the same UK warehouse, it has been sent out in 2 separate packages at very different speeds.

The extension kit arrived very fast. The laser and cutting beds have only just had their courier booked.... so I assume it will arrive after the bank holidays now.

One of the first things I need it to do is make some headstock facias, complete with logos. i have some 3mm flamed maple and walnut, so the plan it to cut two and swap the colours for the logo disc

First i made the drawing in inkscape, i changed the colours so it imports nicely into lightburn

Once in lightburn i can set the order, speed and power of each colour independently - they will be set for this file after I have done some cutting tests

and i can run it through the preview to make sure everything flows in the right order

in other words, i'm ready to go and itching for it to turn up!

Sporky · April 2023

I am definitely interested in this.

Bennyboy-UK · April 2023

PhilKing said:

I am starting to feel the need for a metal face Zemaitis type guitar with a dragon behind the bridge and on the upper bout, with the Tarot Card world between the pickups!

Something like this do you mean?

Image: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52560121333_9982569888_o.jpg

Image: https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52559573521_06690bf4eb_o.jpg

or this?

WezV · April 2023

This won't engrave or cut metal.... I would need a fibre laser or cnc mill for that. The most it will do is change the colour of stainless steel coating,

What it can engrave is coatings on metal, which potentially gives a few options for a Zemaitis inspired build

I could spray the metal first and engrave through, just leaving the painted design where i wanted, but that could wear easily... or potentially do that as a negative and then chemically etch the design into the exposed metal before stripping the paint.

I will try both at some point.

I did start one by hand a few years back, but messed up on the rope border

OilCityPickups · April 2023

The Beast at 'Oily Towers'
Best investment I ever made

Sporky · April 2023

I have some of that racking.

OilCityPickups · April 2023

Sporky said:

I have some of that racking.

It's great stuff :-)

The laser is sooooooooo heavy I had to build the cart under it with industrial casters (and a materials storage area).

WezV · April 2023

It's due to be delivered this afternoon, 12 days including Easter bank holiday isn't bad, just a bit longer than anticipated.

Assuming I don't miss the delivery, the plan for the next few weeks is.

1) Build and connect - Done
2) Cutting and engraving test patterns - Done

and assuming it all works okay...

3) Wedding lanterns - cutting 3 mm ply - success
4) Headstock facias/logos - cutting and engraving 3mm hardwoods - success
5) Pickup templates - 6mm ply
6) Scratchplate template - 6mm ply
7) Pickup winder box - 6mm ply
8) Fretboard cut/engraving/marking out - various hardwoods
9) Guitar templates - 6mm ???

WezV · April 2023

Arrived

All the parts are nicely labelled and it went together quickly.

There were a few bits not covered in depth, but the sculpfun YouTube channel answered them all.

Frame

All wired up and ready to go

And I got an engraving test card done on one of the included bits of ply, says S10, but its the S30 I have

Sporky · April 2023

That looks promising.

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Laser engraver/cutter ideas and experiences - it's here and i'm cutting things!

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