Laser Processing Laminated Materials: Should You do it?

Laminated material usually consists of a layer of plastic sandwiched between two pieces of metal. This combination poses significant cutting challenges as the heat required to cut the metal is much too hot for the plastic and will melt the material. This result will often be a concave incision along the length of the cut. 

So can you do it? Yes. Should you do it? That depends on your level of experience. Marginal success can be had processing laminated material with a laser cutter; but this takes experimentation and patience. For applications where edge quality is not important laser cutting is certainly an option. 

All things being equal, laminated materials are best processed on a waterjet or a high-speed router– especially when cut quality matters.

 

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