So I was experimenting with really small inlays today - some of the pieces are supposed to be a mm wide in areas, and I think I need to correct my answer about focus above. Well maybe. I haven’t really figured it out yet but I’m getting bigger gaps than I want. It happened on the rose skis too.. when I saw the gaps on the rose skis I thought my main issue was that the pieces of veneer weren’t laying perfectly flat, but the ones I used today definitely were. I’m starting to think either focus is the issue, or maybe I need to just enlarge the inside pieces to account for the laser girth, or both. I’ve been doing more research about fine tuning the focus, everyone seems to talk about it but I haven’t seen much for straight forward methods to do it. Will update when I figure it out more. With engraving it doesn’t really seem to be an issue, I suspect because of the lower power & heat, but with cutting it definitely is.. Here’s what I attempted:
EDIT: I got some feedback from the kind folks over in the lasercutting subreddit and the main takeaways are:
- mirror the engraving so the back of the veneer becomes the front of the inlay - helps hide/reduce burn marks
- account for the laser's "kerf" - measure it with a caliper and enlarge the inside piece vectors by that amount.
- reduce the power and speed to get less charring and cleaner lines - multiple passes if needed.
going to do some more 'speriments and I'll share the results!
