Cooling Rack for Cutting Honeycomb

[Bill George]

Looking for a honeycomb to do laser cutting of acrylic and other materials. Darn hard to find one, last one I ordered and got a refund on was 1 1/2 inches out of square.

Would a cooling or baking cooling rack work? 24x16 for $20 plus shipping of course.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51gJ6vW1tnL.jpg

[Don Corbeil]

Bill, do you need a flat rack, or can a bed of nails work? I have a honeycomb table which needed replacement, but got tired of the cleaning and flareback on certain materials when cutting. Instead of buying a new one, I opted for an array of 1.5" nails with neodymium magnets that I glued to the heads. They are super strong, and the only thing I miss with the table is just laying a piece down along an edge to get quick alignment. Instead I just align with the laser head along the length of the piece. But now I get almost zero flareback and the base table stays surprisingly clean.


311092

[Bill George]

Don't tell my wife, but I've borrowed one from the kitchen to try. It is flat across the top and sets even on the laser bed. Going to try a test cut and report back...

The price on Amazon is more like $24 with free Amazon Prime shipping, if I decide it works.

[Ross Moshinsky]

That won't work that well. You're going to see a lot of flashing.

Make yourself a pin table. They are cheap and easy to make. Get a piece of material that has a bit of thickness (something laser friendly). Throw it on the laser and have it mark some holes. Go over to your drill press and drill some holes. Stick some pins (McMaster is a good source) in your holes and you're all set. If you're really anal or are doing a production run, you can use the drawing as a base layer when setting up cut files so you know exactly where to put your pins and then you can remove certain pins that will hit your cut lines.

[Don Corbeil]

I made a quick pin table at first, but found that storing it out of the way where I wouldn't step on it, or snag something on it was a problem in my small shop. The nails/magnets idea seems to offer a lot more flexibility to me. I can move them around in any pattern or remove some of them as necessary, and they all stick together in a tight bunch when storing. Very easy to make with inexpensive magnets, nails, and gorilla glue.

[Julian Ashcroft]

My honeycombed bed is a door vent, 10mm squares about 10mm deep, all wrapped up in an Aluminium frame. I drilled holes into the frame so I could bolt it to the laser bed. I have 10mm diameter hollow tubing cut to length which fit in the honeycomb for locating pieces and is really handy when doing numerous pieces of the same thing, setting takes seconds.

[Bill George]

The cooling rack worked just fine. Its steel so my LaserMag magnetic vinyl sticks and I did not see any flashing, maybe because it would have been under the vinyl. Plenty of air movement underneath. Worst cause long term if it does not work.... wife gets a 16 x 24 cooling rack for cookies. Best case, it works and is under $25.

[Ross Moshinsky]

You do realize cutting vinyl is really not advisable, right? Vinyl is PVC.

[Bill George]

You do realize cutting vinyl is really not advisable, right? Vinyl is PVC.

Rowmark LaserMag. > http://www.rowmark.com/laser/LASERmag/lasermag.asp

[Matt McCoy]

You do realize cutting vinyl is really not advisable, right? Vinyl is PVC.

I think LAZERmag is intended for laser use.

http://www.rowmark.com/laser/LASERmag/lasermag.asp

[Ross Moshinsky]

LazerMag is not vinyl so it shouldn't be referred to as vinyl.

[Kev Williams]

I was at the Asian Market last night, half the store is commercial cooking stuff--

Saw one of these, it's a donut cooling rack, very tight weave, about 18" square or so, was $19...
seemed to be good and flat too...

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/donut rack3.jpg

Would be great for small stuff--

there's these types too, for not-so-small stuff...

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/donut rack1.jpg

http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/donut rack2.jpg

[Mayo Pardo]

I've been using a lighting grid from Home Depot made by Plaskolite. It's white styrene. It does tend to get cut up after awhile and unlike a metal grid it can burn, but it works in a pinch and relatively cheap. It can be cut to size with a diagonal cutter or hack saw. The only thing I don't like about it is the grid size is weird - close to half inch but not.

[Glen Monaghan]

the grid size is weird - close to half inch but not.

1 cm perhaps?