Unfortunately, not all woods can be laser cut meaning that engineers have to be careful when selecting wood stock. Oily wood, such as eucalyptus, can cause fires inside the laser cutter during operation. Additionally, wood with inconsistent grain structures can result in uneven cuts. Engineered woods tend to be the best for laser cutting.
Some woods, such as eucalyptus, contain large amounts of oil which can cause fires inside the laser cutter during operation. This oil can also smoulder and produce thick tar and soot which damages laser cutter optics and other critical mechanical parts.
Other woods can have inconsistent grain structures (such as knots), which are significantly harder or softer than the surrounding material. Such inconsistencies can result in uneven cuts that either burn too much or don’t burn enough, and this can be particularly hard to account for during manufacturing. At the same time, these inconsistencies also make such parts unreliable from an engineering point of view with wide variations in tensile strength and density.
By far the best types of wood to laser cut are engineered woods. Generally, such material stock is made up of wood pulp that is shaped and formed so that they are internally consistent, has well-documented engineering characteristics, and are easier to machine. One such example would be MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard), which is compressed wood pulp and glue, while another example would be plywood which is made from multiple layers of wood sheets at perpendicular grain orientations.
To help engineers choose suitable wood for their laser-cut wood projects, Ponoko has a range of specially curated wood that is engineered, highly reliable, and laser-safe. The consistency of our wood stock ensures that any two parts made using our service will exhibit near-identical engineering properties including tensile strength and density, and this allows engineers to not only prototype laser-cut wood parts but also to create mass-produced parts that will exhibit a high degree of reliability and repeatability.