Techniques to hold down Stainless plates

[mike wallis]

Hello,
We do allot of 18 gauge stainless plates ranging from 2X2" to 18X24". Right now we use double sided plaque tape to hold down the plates when lasering with Thermark. If we don't the will bow up during while lasering. It seems to do the trick however it's a bit time consuming putting the tape on and taking it off each plate. Do you guys have any tricks that you use to hold down stainless plates? My Trotec has an aluminum bed so unfortunately magnets won't work. I do have a vacuum system but it only good for lightweight items that bend easily. I considered a Maybe a bigger vacuum pump but not sure if it will work either. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance for any help

[Mark Sipes]

I have a TROTEC also... From day one I double side taped a sheet of Trophy brass steel sheet ($6-8) (12"x 24") to the bed and with 10 name tag magnets nothing moves . I laser 15 x 5 USCG Doc plates that warp up...but not with the magnets in place. Flexi brass doesn't blow away during cutting and on and on

Hope this idea helps.



,

[mike wallis]

I have a TROTEC also... From day one I double side taped a sheet of Trophy brass steel sheet ($6-8) (12"x 24") to the bed and with 10 name tag magnets nothing moves . I laser 15 x 5 USCG Doc plates that warp up...but not with the magnets in place. Flexi brass doesn't blow away during cutting and on and on

Hope this idea helps.



,

That's a great idea Mark. Question, for holding down the left side next to the ruler as well as the top, how to you hold with magnets?

[Mark Sipes]

That's a great idea Mark. Question, for holding down the left side next to the ruler as well as the top, how to you hold with magnets?


That's where I installed the 12" x 24" steel sheet..


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[mike wallis]

That's where I installed the 12" x 24" steel sheet..


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If you had the stainless butted to the top of the ruler & needed to laser the top edge of the plate, the magnets would interfere wouldn't they?

[Kev Williams]

get or make some spacers for the corners. A couple of 12" steel rulers from harbor freight will work fine. Measure their exact width, and in Corel (or?) place margins to match the width away from the top and left margin, then snap your job to the margins. When doing SS just magnet down the bottom and right corners and/or edges, then carefully remove the spacers and place the remaining magnets.

If wet on your laser table isn't an issue, you can try what I do: Take a cheap red harbor freight shop rag, place in on the table, soak it with some ice water and place the plate on it. It IS effective at soaking up the heat! You may have to get creative with aligning the plate, cutting off 2 (or all 4) edges of the rag will let it lay good & flat.

[Mark Sipes]

I have rarely had a need to laser to the upper edge of a plate, but since I can see on the monitor the image to be lazed I can place a magnet at a location not to be engrave for hold down pressure. A strong magnet with a thin felt pad eliminates any scratches.

I engrave all kinds of weird shaped acrylic awards and find it easiest to place the items with a straight edge (usually the award base) at the top edge of the table and engrave the text/image upside down ( art reverersed in Corel) . Back side engraved also just reverse invert the text.


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A framers square placed at the bottom of the plate is one of an engravers most valuable tools.

[Kev Williams]

I'm in the middle of cermarking these SS cert plates in my LS100,
which has a solid table and some small T-slots, here's how I
keep the warpage from messing up the focus, and note my 1" wide spacers:
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^^ these are M4x20mm 'blind' PEM studs, one of several sizes I use around here,
just happens that they fit nicely in the T-slots, and while they don't actually
prevent warping as a wet rag can, they DO keep the edges flat so they
stay in focus :) --and as you can see on the bottom of this plate, the
engraving is quite close to the bottom and sides.

FWIW, I have some very strong magnets, and they won't hold SS down to suit me...

[GLENN BRADDY]

So I just got a Trotec laser. And I've had this problem for a while on my ULS 4.60 too.. I don't do alot of stainless but I do alot of switch panels. And nothing is ever flat in our little Laser world. So I made these. 3mm acrylic clips. I remove the factory screw on the table grid and got longer ones. I believe they were either M4 or M5. Then pulled out a Delrin sheet and made and lasered washers. You could make the clips themselves out of metal if you wanted to. When making the clips, make sure they are bright or loud in color. That way you always know where they are and how high they are. For safety purposes.

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