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Lisa Walter
01-07-2008, 8:43 PM
I have wood sheets here, size 4 x 12 x 3/32 inches. They would like both sides of the business card lasered. Is this the size I would use for business cards? If not I will need to order more wood.

Thanks for any help.

Lisa

Joe Hayes
01-07-2008, 9:43 PM
Lisa Standard business card is 3.5 x2 you could tweek the size a little to utilize all your wood.

Lisa Walter
01-07-2008, 9:50 PM
Lisa Standard business card is 3.5 x2 you could tweek the size a little to utilize all your wood.

I was wondering what thickness they should be though. I don't want to go too thin and have them snapping.

Kenneth Hertzog
01-07-2008, 9:53 PM
Lisa

Joe is right the size is 3.5 x 2
The thickness on the cards you want to use sounds thick for a business card.
The wood I use is a little thicker than a regular business card.
Lee Valley has the wood precut (50 for 2.95)
ken

Nancy Laird
01-07-2008, 10:11 PM
Lisa, we make wood business cards from 1/32" Finland birch ply. They are just thick enough to be sturdy, but will still fit into a card sleeve or a wallet. If you are going to do both sides of the material, be sure to mask the back before you cut it. Otherwise, you are going to get burn marks from the vectoring in your laser and they won't come off. For easy registration, I'd raster the first side, vector out the cards, then without moving your base piece, remove each card, remove the mask, and turn them over into the same slot where you cut them out. They'll be registered perfectly. If you have any more questions, you can PM me.

Nancy

Lisa Walter
01-07-2008, 10:15 PM
Lisa

Joe is right the size is 3.5 x 2
The thickness on the cards you want to use sounds thick for a business card.
The wood I use is a little thicker than a regular business card.
Lee Valley has the wood precut (50 for 2.95)
ken

Do you have a web page for Lee Valley? I need to laser both sides so do you think I should go with the thinner one?

Thanks
Lisa

Richard Rumancik
01-07-2008, 10:17 PM
Lisa, the normal size is 2" x 3.5 so if you want to use that size, it doesn't work that well with your sheet size as you need clamping area and edge margin. Even if they shared a common horizontal cutline between them, you probably couldn't make them more than about 1.85" high. You probably want a horizontal grain. Are your sheets made from basswood or alder?

I often cut 4" x 24" sheets of basswood (.062 and .094") but I always clamp the edges as I cut "in air" (as opposed to cutting on honeycomb) to avoid burns. Thin plywood, veneer, and hobby wood is not always flat enough to cut while it is sitting on a cutting table. If you try, your lens will be out of focus somewhere and you may have a high reject rate. I would recommend that you make a fixture to do this. I use metal strips that pinch the edges and hold the sheet fairly flat.

I have had more success with thin plywood rather than solid wood. You can get it at Michael's but it is a bit expensive for single sheets. However you could try one sheet and see what you think, then look for a distributor. It lasers dark and won't crack as easily as solid wood. It is surprisingly pliable.

With basswood the contrast is low; I think alder is better.

I use .015" thick 3 ply (1/64") for cards, but if engraving both sides it might be too thin. If you want to mark both sides you will need a fixture (with pockets) to hold the cut cards in position for the second engraving. (Or else you need to have a fixture that will hold registration from one side to the other accurately, so the two images line up. That method could get complicated . . . )

Or you could cut all your outlines in one setup, and then load the blanks into a second fixture that does the marking one side at a time. The small blanks would sit flat in the pockets for raster.

Lisa Walter
01-07-2008, 10:17 PM
Lisa, we make wood business cards from 1/32" Finland birch ply. They are just thick enough to be sturdy, but will still fit into a card sleeve or a wallet. If you are going to do both sides of the material, be sure to mask the back before you cut it. Otherwise, you are going to get burn marks from the vectoring in your laser and they won't come off. For easy registration, I'd raster the first side, vector out the cards, then without moving your base piece, remove each card, remove the mask, and turn them over into the same slot where you cut them out. They'll be registered perfectly. If you have any more questions, you can PM me.

Nancy

Thanks for the advice Nancy. This is my first try at business cards. My friend actually has two businesses (both pertaining to wood) and he wants both businesses on the card. Where do you get your 1/32 ply?

Lisa

Lisa Walter
01-07-2008, 10:21 PM
Lisa, the normal size is 2" x 3.5 so if you want to use that size, it doesn't work that well with your sheet size as you need clamping area and edge margin. Even if they shared a common horizontal cutline between them, you probably couldn't make them more than about 1.85" high. You probably want a horizontal grain. Are your sheets made from basswood or alder?

I often cut 4" x 24" sheets of basswood (.062 and .094") but I always clamp the edges as I cut "in air" (as opposed to cutting on honeycomb) to avoid burns. Thin plywood, veneer, and hobby wood is not always flat enough to cut while it is sitting on a cutting table. If you try, your lens will be out of focus somewhere and you may have a high reject rate. I would recommend that you make a fixture to do this. I use metal strips that pinch the edges and hold the sheet fairly flat.

I have had more success with thin plywood rather than solid wood. You can get it at Michael's but it is a bit expensive for single sheets. However you could try one sheet and see what you think, then look for a distributor. It lasers dark and won't crack as easily as solid wood. It is surprisingly pliable.

With basswood the contrast is low; I think alder is better.

I use .015" thick 3 ply (1/64") for cards, but if engraving both sides it might be too thin. If you want to mark both sides you will need a fixture (with pockets) to hold the cut cards in position for the second engraving. (Or else you need to have a fixture that will hold registration from one side to the other accurately, so the two images line up. That method could get complicated . . . )

Or you could cut all your outlines in one setup, and then load the blanks into a second fixture that does the marking one side at a time. The small blanks would sit flat in the pockets for raster.

Thank you for your advice. I have about 20 sheets of alder in the size I mentioned above so I was just going to use that (if it was the right thickness) but it looks like I will have to order some thinner stuff. I got the alder from laserbits but I am open to getting it anywhere else :) The Michael's you mentioned above....do you mean the craft store Michael's? And when you get the plywood you use......do you have trouble with bowing?

Thanks

Lisa

Richard Rumancik
01-07-2008, 10:49 PM
The Michael's you mentioned above....do you mean the craft store Michael's? And when you get the plywood you use......do you have trouble with bowing? Lisa

Yes, Michael's as in the craft store.

Nancy has given good advice I think. If you use 1/32" you will probably be okay for 2 sided marking. Her method of using the skeleton as the "fixture" will get you going faster. (But as she says - don't let the skeleton move when you extract parts. Tape it down if you can.)

I find the birch plywood to be fairly flat but as I have a fixture I still clamp it. I also cut it into strips first. The smaller your sheet, the more it "relaxes" and it will curl less. You might be able to make-do with flat metal bars like keystock to weight it down if you want to start by using the vector table. If you end up doing a lot of these I would still suggest a pocket fixture.

I have used the veneer from Lee Valley. It is okay, but a bit inconsistent. (My sample here is .020" thick.) Sizes will not be exact or identical. Corners are square (I recommend rounded). Some will have bad color, some cracked, etc. Solid wood is more prone to cracking than plywood. Price is really low though so you can afford to pick out the good ones. I used it until I discovered the birch plywood.

Bill Morrison
01-07-2008, 11:00 PM
Lisa, I don't know where you are located but look in the phone book for a company that sells architectual woods. I found 3 places and each place sells a different sized sheet. 1 place sold 5X5 sheets and another sold 4X8. I forgot the last place but anyway shop around a bit and I found that the prices a cheaper than Michaels. I had been buying small pieces there but now that I found the other places and cheaper prices I can experiment more and it doesn't cost as much

Bill

Lee DeRaud
01-08-2008, 1:07 AM
The stuff Michaels sells is also available at any hobby store that caters to R/C model airplane builders, usually a bit cheaper.
(Plus you don't get stuck in the only open checkout line behind someone buying one each of 300 different dried flowers. DAMHIKT.)

Ed Maloney
01-08-2008, 8:52 AM
I order my 1/32" from Sloan's Woodshop, www.sloanswoodshop.com

Ben Levesque
01-08-2008, 8:52 AM
Here is the link for those Lee valley business cards (http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=32820&cat=1,250,43217)
I use them in mostly all my projects, they are 0.022 inch think made of 100% single ply maple.

Ben

Howard Garner
01-08-2008, 8:59 AM
I use this as a source of thin plywood.

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/menus/wp/plywood.html

Recommended by others here on Sawmill Creek.

Howard Garner
Pickens, SC

Nancy Laird
01-08-2008, 9:40 AM
I order my 1/32" from Sloan's Woodshop, www.sloanswoodshop.com (http://www.sloanswoodshop.com)


I use this as a source of thin plywood.

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/menus/wp/plywood.html

Recommended by others here on Sawmill Creek.

Howard Garner
Pickens, SC

Lisa, we've ordered the 1/32" birch from both of these places. At Sloan's, we were getting 12x24" sheets already cut to size, for about $4.50 per sheet. However, we were getting the sheets with some damage on them, so we weren't getting full . At Aircraft Spruce, we are getting 4x4-foot sheets, the price difference between the two is startling. AS price is (now) $25.40 per sheet, and cutting down to 8 table-size sheets makes the price about $3.18 per sheet. You can get 30 business cards on a 12x24" sheet, making your price 11 cents each in material. I'm selling the single-side cards for $1.00 each, double-side for $1.75. That's a pretty good return.

However, the downside to this material is that is does NOT come finished and laser-ready. You will need to cut down the AS material to table size, run a random-orbital sander over it, and spray it (both sides) with two coats of lacquer to make it laser-ready. The other stuff mentioned might already be finished, cutting down on your prep time. Fortunately, I have a hubby who does all the prep work next door in the workshop.:D

Nancy