Today I was Lazy and used my Laser

[Tim Mellor]

I needed some small tapered wedges for a woodworking job and spent 10 minutes doing the CAD work and a few minutes of Laser time to make them. Time spent to finished article better and likely faster than using other tools. Cut eight of them BTW 3-10mm x 75 long.

What other quick lash ups have you done or do with your Laser?

[Ryan LaBarre]

I created clear acrylic stakes to brace up my resin tombstones for halloween... took about 2 minutes to design, and just cut like 20 and ran outside

[Tim Mellor]

I have had paper templates printed out and stuck together to make a Router template for weeks as happens in my shack. Today was the day to finally make them but as I am was feeling lazy I tweaked the CAD file to jigsaw the long template and cut them straight to 3mm MDF. No mess no dust and more accurate than making them manually would be.

Small brass inserts to go in the holes as drill guides for the pilot drill then drill out with a 25mm Forstner bit later.

[Jeffrey Aley]

I have had paper templates printed out and stuck together to make a Router template for weeks as happens in my shack. Today was the day to finally make them but as I am was feeling lazy I tweaked the CAD file to jigsaw the long template and cut them straight to 3mm MDF. No mess no dust and more accurate than making them manually would be.

Small brass inserts to go in the holes as drill guides for the pilot drill then drill out with a 25mm Forstner bit later.

Why not cut out the circles with the laser?

[Tim Mellor]

In this case partly to do with the Forstner bits themselves. Drilling a pilot hole through the blank means you can partially drill from both sides with decent accuracy to prevent blowing out the face.

It also means I can fit 3mm dowel pins to locate the templates on the blanks without having to muck around with double sided tape which is the more common method.

The larger square sided template is easier as it just gets aligned off two square faces then clamped down to do the routing.

EDIT: Pic of 12 and 25mm holes added. Drilled to about 1/2 way on the 3mm pilot hole from either side.

Edit of the Edit: All the bits put together and a coat of Beeswax and Oil to finish.

[Tim Mellor]

Not so much lazy as it just made sense and it gets a nice looking result. This Router cutting template isn't a new idea either most use either timber or metal slides to join the bits together and take a whole lot of manual work and finishing. So this is my take on a 300mm Rectangular routing template. Also modded Router bases in Acrylic too.

4.5mm Acrylic is fairly slow on my 40W Laser but the result is not to bad. It will run 6mm but that is a slug at 3-4mm/s.

EDIT: While I was at it I ran off some Router Table inserts on one of the printers. One layer to high so either sand a touch off underneath or tweak and reprint.

[Tim Mellor]

No idea if this is useful to others but as I do a fair bit of modelling from real world existing objects for CAD measuring corner radius's is a bit of a guess. Straight lead in and outs into a 90 degree segment of circle. It still won't suit all the spots but it will just go in the box of measuring/marking tools to help out.

Also tempted to do an outside version like the one shown but I find drills poked into corners generally work for these. This one is actually Fractional Inches as I am that old we were taught both

So this is one of todays quick tools in METRIC only. EDIT I was sipping a Beer to lubricate the remaining brain cells so I did an imperial version too

The SVG files are in the Zips below too if you want to make one.

[Tim Mellor]

Spent a little time today and made the internal ones. I haven't cut them yet but either 1.5 or 2mm Acrylic and then fit them to a keychain or drop them on a nut and bolt as a set of gauges.

Metric and Imperial sets are in the Zip file as SVG's.

Cut the two sets today from a bit of 1.5mm Acrylic I had leftover to help keep the stack manageable. Screw and Nyloc nut to hold them in the stack. Also interesting to go over and check the cut dimensions and kerf allowance I am using. +- 0.03mm is about the worst I got.

edit - fixed a slight goof on the imperial one

[Tim Mellor]

Just because my Laser won't cut 17mm Plywood doesn't mean not using the Laser. I have a dozen 150mm Radius curves to cut on something I am building (maybe should have left the corners square ) So a quick bit of Cad and a simple Template with a corner alignment hole and two stop blocks from a bit of 4.5mm Acrylic to get it done.

Rough cut with a guide bush and a 1/4" spiral upcut bit because I wanted to try it out (new bit) and my Jigsaw is worse than average, the plus side is it leaves less than 2mm for the cleanup cut. Finish cut with a flushcut bit. Much better result than a jigsaw by lots and without cleanup a bandsaw wouldn't get near it for time. Very little sanding needed later on.

Laser usage for the Win

[Gene Uselman]

Better living thru lasers.