How to Setup Your Own Laser Cutting Templates

This brief article should give you an idea of what you need to do in order to setup your own laser cutting templates for us to use. Setting up your own laser-cutting templates can save you some time and money when you want to get custom parts made by us.

What is a Laser Cutting Template?

A laser cutting template is simply a drawng of what you want cut on our laser cutter. This sound simple enough but does warrant some attention to detail.

Parts need to be separated into drawings of the appropriate wood size and type. Lets say that you have 5 parts in your model that are made from 1/16th inch balsa. These need to be set up on a drawing that is the same size as the piece of wood that they would be cut out of.

Let's say that you can squeeze these parts onto a drawing that is 4x24 inches (a common size of balsa sheet). Set up the drawing as a "box" that is 4 x 24 inches and simply copy and paste your 5 part drawings into that box, paying close attention to grain direction. This is a laser-cutting template.

It should be noted that wood can come in sizes that are longer than 24 inches. Typical longer sizes are 36 inches and 48 inches. Our laser cutter has a table size of 12x24 inches, which limits the length of wood sheet that we can use.

Line Color

Line color controls cutting power and speed. We use black for cutting lines, and blue for marking lines. Anything that is not part of the final product should be deleted. Put any drawing notes outside of the 4x24 inch "cutting box". Notes are useful for figuring out what type of wood that you want us to use for that template, or for other important points. They will be deleted before cutting, so make them easy to delete.

Spacing

Make sure that the parts are far anough away from each other so that cutting lines don't intersect. Intersecting or closely spaced lines will leave unsightly marks on the edges. One to two millimeter spacing is the norm. You want to leave a 3 millimeter border on the top and left sides of the template, and a 5 millimeter border on the bottom and right sides.

File Type

DXF is the most widely used CAD format for drawing interchange and is also the easiest to produce. Low-cost CAD software that can be purchased for under $100 at most office supply stores should be able to produce DXF files. We can accept other formats, but this will be the easiest to send us when you are ready to have us quote you a price on laser cutting.

Work in Progress

This article is a work in progress. Please email us with questions, comments, or suggestions.