Materials that can be cut/engraved from the London Hack Space wiki. If you want to cut a material which is not on the allowed list you must contact the maintainers through the members email list to ask permission.
Allowed
Woods
- Laser-grade MDF (max 8mm)
- Laser-grade plywood
- Birch ply (max 9mm)
- Poplar ply (max 9mm)
- Balsa wood
- Paper (cutting only)
- Card/Cardboard (cutting only)
Plastics
- Thin Polypropylene sheet (<1mm)
- Acrylic (max 10mm)
- Foamcore (non-PVC variety)
- Correx (Genuine non PVC)
- Depron foam (Fire risk, must be closely monitored)
- EVA Foam (if real)
- Delrin (max 8mm)
Textiles
- Cloth/felt/hemp/cotton (Not plastic-impregnated fabric)
- Polar Fleece
For engraving only
- Stone (Engrave only)
- Ceramic tile (Engrave only)
- Non-resinous wood IE hardwood (Engrave only)
- Glass (Engrave only)
- Anodised Aluminium (Engrave only)
Materials that should not be used
- Cork (fire risk)
- Wood which isn't explicitly laser-grade (laser contamination, fire risk, emissions)
- Food (laser contamination, fire risk, emissions)
- Body parts
- Plastics containing PVC (laser contamination, emissions)
- Plastics containing ABS (laser contamination, fire risk, cyanide emission)
- Fibreglass (laser contamination, fire risk, emissions)
- Circuit boards (laser contamination, fire risk, emissions)
- Polycarbonate (laser contamination, fire risk)
- All metal (except engraving anodized aluminium)
- Polystyrene (laser contamination, fire risk, emissions)
- Polypropylene (laser contamination, fire risk, emissions)
- HDPE (high-density polyethylene or polyethylene) (laser contamination, fire risk, emissions)
- Carbon fibre (laser contamination, fire risk, emissions)
- Shuttering ply (laser contamination, fire risk, emissions)
- Latex (laser contamination, fire risk, emissions)
- Leather, all. (laser contamination)