Laser Cutting a Plywood Centrosaur

Still slowly working through my dinosaur collection – same as I did with my ShopBot Desktop years back – learn your mistakes on simple things not complicated models!

The laser cutting process went smooth as usual, it’s really quite a contrast from the CNC router I used before for these models… the laser is very silent but the extraction and air compressor make more noise than the vacuum system I had on the router!

This board wasn’t flat, with the router, that isn’t an issue but with a laser where you only have a few mm of tolerance, it can be, so I slowed down the cutting process so more energy was hitting any given point of the 5 mm plywood board and voila, instant centrosaur! I just love being able to pull the board out and have the pieces stay in place on the other side!

The glue did as glue normally does, keep everything together, you’ll see burned edges around the tires, that’s because I used too much power – I still have one more sheet of 2 year old 6 mm board that’s getting increasingly warped. Unlike a CNC router, the vacuum table with a grid set-up as you see in the picture below is to suck the vapor and fumes out, not to “hold down” your board. I do have a vacuum table that is solid that can “hold down” material but why mark it up? I use that for the manufacturing end of CNCROi.com.

And there you have it, instant plywood Centrosaur… you can find it right now at CNCKing.com under “It’s Alive” heading in both CNC router and CNC laser formats. The router version is larger but I still like my little laser models. If you want to see this being made, check out the video below!