Wednesday 9th May

Worklist:
Play with the laser cutter
Gasifier bucket assembly
Workshop details

With Laurence investigating the inside of a large, noisy scanner, Geoff and Stephen could play with the laser cutter, with a clear conscience.

Stephen had prepared three drawing files to test different features, all for his Gn15 layout:

1) a sheet of sycamore leaves - cut from an A4 sheet of plain 80gms paper. The sheet was supposed to be coloured to represent autumnal shades, but Stephen forgot to prepare it. However, the result was very impressive and a coloured sheet will be forthcoming.

2) a 5ft dia. cable drum - cut from an A4 sheet of grey cardboard. Apart from basic lines, this test included bold text and wide lines, neither of which appeared beyond a single line representation. However, Geoff tried out a hatch option that worked nicely. Stephen will investigate creating the solid areas in the DWG file. Two passes at high power completed the full cut-through.

3) a packing case - cut from 2mm MDF, scrounged from his local picture framer. The MDF was good quality, dense board and required multiple passes to cut through. In fact, the session finished with the cutter still working and the board looking quite charred. This was partly due to the drawing method where rectangles had been stacked and overlapping shapes were cut twice. We'll have to wait to see how it comes out.

Whilst the last sheet was being cut, Stephen turned to the gasifier bucket assembly and fitted some fine chain. Note the motor control unit hanging down?

The workshop doors had been etched and cut out. Geoff completed sticking the brickwork strips to the door reveals.