LASER CUTTING

Custom Laser Cutting

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Brubaker Models has a 100W CNC Laser cutting and engraving machine. The bed area is 24″ X 48″. I can cut balsa, poplar lite ply, birch aircraft ply, Depron, Adams Redi-board and other materials. If you are interested in putting together that one-off prototype or a small production run of your design, please email me for a quote. I work from .dxf and .plt files. I can also convert .pdf files if they are from CAD rather than a scan. If you have an alternate file type that you would like to try, feel free to email me a sample. I do not scan paper plans at this time.

Email for all laser correspondence: eric@brubakermodels.com

Instructions for files from CAD:

  • Set line width to 0. (In CorelDraw set line width to “hairline”.)
  • Make sure there are no overlapping lines. (Lines directly on top of each other will process twice.)
  • Add connecting tabs so that pieces do not fall out of sheet. I do this by inserting a double line here and there across the drawing and using it as a cutting tool to remove sections of the drawing lines. Run your tabs with the grain where possible. Tabs in balsa and foam should be 0.080″. Lite ply works well at 0.050″ and birch ply at 0.035″. This can be varied some as experience dictates; we just want to keep the sheets from falling apart with handling and shipping.
  • Nest parts together inside a rectangle that is sized to match available sheet size of desired material. Allow 0.125″ on all sides between parts and sheet edge. Label each sheet clearly for correct material and thickness.
  • Cut lines are to be black and engraving lines or markings to be blue. Sheet outlines should be green. I can also score Redi-Board half-way through for folded type construction (make these score lines red). Please note that text should be an .shx type font that can be converted to curves. Other fonts will take much longer to process and add considerable expense.

Here is an example of a properly prepared file:   Laser File Set-up Guide

Email for all laser correspondence:  eric@brubakermodels.com

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