Vector Cutting Corian

[Scott Shepherd]

Before I burn the entire building down trying something stupid, can you vector cut Corian? I know the ShopBot is the way to go, and I honestly have no need to vector cut it, but darned if curiousity isn't getting the best of me while looking at this Corian Ed Lang cut for me.

1/4" Corian, can you vector cut it?

[Wil Lambert]

Yes you can. It's just acrylic. Wil

[Mike Mackenzie]

Scott,

We have cut corian before the picture below was cut with 120 watts and sparks were a flying however it cut pretty good.

Corian is a very abrasive material and you must clean your motion system very well when ever you engrave or cut corian.

This material was 1/2 thick and it took most of the 120 watts so cutting 1/4 you should use 60 watts. We also used air assist when we did this.

This being said there are more efficient ways to CUT corian.

[Keith Outten]

Mike,

Were you able to vector cut 1/2" thick Corian in a single pass? If so I wonder if it can be done in two or three passes at 60 watts.

A CNC router is the way to go normally but very small diameter router bits are fragile and very inticate detail is best done with an engraver.

.

[James Rambo]

Keith, I have a 60 watt and I tried cutting 1/2" corian with no luck 3 passes and I got 2/3rd the way through.Although I did not try it at 1% speed and 100% power but close.

[Mike Mackenzie]

Kieth,

It took most of the 120 watts to cut this and yes as I said there are far better ways to cut it.

I think Scott was asking about 1/4 corian and you should be able to get through it with 60 watts.

Again it is not efficient but can do some intricate work.

[Keith Outten]

Mike,

I like the idea of vector cutting Corian with a laser and the oportunities it brings to sign making. I have a half sheet of 1/4" Corian that I will try to cut ASAP just to se how well it works.

Even if the technique isn't efficient the ability to do very intricate work as you say would be worthwhile on some projects.

Oh, I was able to convince my Corian distributor to secure a couple pieces of the new 1/4" translucent white Corian so I can do some dye-sub testing. The pieces should be in my hands in a short period of time so if i can determine whether my laser will cut it and it dye-subs well it could make for some interesting options.

Thanks

.

[Mike Mackenzie]

Keith,

We have customers who work with corian everyday. When working with it it creates a very fine particulate dust that is very abrasive.

Be sure to clean your motion system very well once you have finished engraving and or cutting corian.

Also be aware that when cutting the corian it becomes very "HOT" so do not pick up the pcs right after they are finished.

Don't ask me how I know.

Also I think one more important point to make here when we cut this we use conical air assist with 80 psi of air blowing directly at the cut.
I think this really helped.

I want to see some pic's once you give it a go.

[Sandra Force]

Keith,

Having done 1/2" Corian with a 150w laser I have to agree that it took a lot of power and was slow. With air assist it still sent sparks everywhere. The other thing that we noticed was that you have to clean the edges extremly well because of the burn factor. Corian bruises very easily and burning it with the laser gives the edges the same texture as a bruise.