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My wife has a request
My dear wife makes cards for charity and friends
she has asked if I can cut some special cards and Boxes
Now I did buy her a craftrobo but it is crap
what router cutter would you buy or what cutter do you use for cutting card
would you use a PCB engraver bit or even a plotter bit ??
James
A sharp drag knife may work; I think the problem may come from the card moving too much !?!
A laser would give nice results but I think some sort of die cutter would be a better choice ?
.Me
thank you lee
I will look into a small Laser then
Thank you
James and his wife
Laser cut cards, seems a bit extreme but it would work well. Problem is the price of lasers? Even with just card, as you need to cut it, you're looking at a 30W laser (complete guess!) which is a lot of money.
Have you looked into using the router as a vinyl cutter? They're good for making decorative things.
You could always buy/make your own low powered laser and fit it to your router http://www.cooperman.talktalk.net/files/18.htm here's an interesting site where someone (cooperman) has done just that, along with other mods (vinyl cutter being one) to their router.
Hi. Trailing knife or trailing vibrating knife. But ££££s, vacuum or electrostatic bed to holdthe card. A nice low tech way is a press knife as per shoemaking. The easy way to explain is to imagine an enormously sharp pastry cutter. They will chomp through leather, card, 8 sheets thick at a time easy.You can still get knives made to card patterns or Cad drawings at:
http://www.woodash.co.uk/Pressknives.html
The cost of a quite complex knife can be £100, only really worth it if you want a alot but, last forever and you can then cut 1000s in just a few hours. You need a press of course, depending where you are you may be able to borrow one at a college of friendly shoe factory (rare).
Tom
Hello Tom and Lee
thank you for your reply a cutting die is not the route I would like to go down as for many reasons
first being I have not got a press and don't really have the room for a press
the wife has many cards and boxes she would like cut so it really wouldn't be cost affective to peruse this route
The route I have decided to peruse is a drag knife and later a directional knife made with a stepper motor
I did look at laser but for a lot of reasons decided to bench it as it was more of a gadget curiosity
one of the main reasons for benching the laser was burn marks on the edge of the card
How ever I have a dvd writing diode that I may play with later as the son would love a chance to tell his friend what he has done plus I am sure I could find plenty of hacks for this route
again thank you for your reply
James and his wife:tup::tup:
Small runs, press knife won't be the way. Oscillating trailing knife, can be electric / pneumatic or ultrasonic? An interesting project! Best of Luck.
Tom