Adhesive Cutting Tip

[Joe Pelonio]

I stumbled upon this so thought I'd share. The job is cutting 150 items (.9" circles with holes) out of just 3M 468MP adhesive. I had 2" tape which x24" is perfect for 50. I applied it to scrap vinyl release liner, then taped it onto a scrap of 1/4" acrylic. I was expecting trouble, figuring they would blow out the exhaust, but it turns out that at my settings they stuck to the acrylic just enough to keep from blowing off yet easily be removed with tweezers. As you can see on the last two, the item pulls off leaving the
inside waste bits.

On my 45 watt Epilog I used speed 35, Power 35, frequency 750.
http://members.aol.com/bisjoe/dsc01997.jpg

[Marc Myer]

Great news! I've been hoping to find a laserable adhesive that performs well like that.
Hopefully, it's not too expensive, but 3M products are worth the $.

[Joe Pelonio]

It is expensive, which is why I prefer to use several rows of 2" rather than springing for 6" or 12" on most jobs.

[Richard Rumancik]

I stumbled upon this so thought I'd share. The job is cutting 150 items (.9" circles with holes) out of just 3M 468MP adhesive.

Joe, I assume you were supplying these to a customer to use to bond two parts together?

It looks like the adhesive "welded" to the acrylic underneath just enough that it stayed in place. It might be that the glue layer melts along the cut line just enough to stick it to the acrylic. Looks like a useful trick.

If doing something similar with other materials and the "welding" doesn't work for some reason, I would suggest maybe a light coat of spray adhesive on the sacrificial material (i.e. the acrylic) and let dry. Just enough to make it slightly tacky - so it holds like a sticky note (maybe a bit more.)

3M actually makes some adhesive-only products (in sheet form) - with a double liner. The problem is actually obtaining some. They will sell the tapes over the counter, but many of their products are only sold to approved "converters" and/or purchase quantities are large. The sheet product with double liner is sold to companies that make membrane switch overlays - which are comprised of many stacks of film: screenprinted graphic, conductiver layer, spacer, conductive layer, backer, etc. It might have other applications. If you get a big order (or a large part), it might be worth investigating.

I agree with you about using 2" rolls rather than 6". I can apply the 2" to a sheet of Rowmark (in adjacent strips) by hand fairly accurately. But trying to apply the 6" would not be very practical without equipment.

[Joe Pelonio]

I have used the double liner 3m sheet product before, supplied by the customer. This was a small quantity and I had the 2" and it worked. Yes, it's to bond together two parts, they make some kind of high tech electronics and these are for prototypes. The acrylic below had a slight visible image were the beam hit it enough to weld the edge of the release liner paper to it.