Tool Identification Help

Hi All,

I was sent this way by the Laser group for some help. I am trying to cut stencils for an art project. Ideally they would be 4’ x 4’ cut out of 30 - 26 Ga steel (or other material that a magnet could adhere to). I can split the image smaller but a no smaller than 2’x3’. I was told the Dynotorch plasma cutter might be the tool for the job. Would you agree or suggest another piece of equipment?

TIA
Sheneka

What’s the level of detail required?

Hi Hon,
Because I am creating layered stencils, the ability to start at the same x,y coordinate from one stencil to the next is important but in terms resolution between cuts on the same stencil, 1mm should suffice. Hope that makes sense.

Sheneka

To clarify, I mean how fine detail on the stencils themselves?

If you need a stencil line that’s only 1mm wide you’re going to have a problem for example.

In terms of layering, it’s doable for that purpose but it’s going to be tricky to get right. You might consider a laser cutting service such as SendCutSend

00157124_0392_thumb_00064324_layer02
Here is an example of one of the layers. Once it is blown up to 4x4 the smallest lines should be bigger than 1mm. The entire darkened areas would be cut from a steel sheet.

I have reached out to send cut send as well. My thought was to run a few prototypes before sending to them once I was sure of the alignment etc…

you might instead want to prototype with a thin board or paper using the laser cutters instead of steel.

it’s hard to really tell given the scaling, but I’m afraid you may lose a lot of the detail and some of the small splatter items may be a problem. The biggest issue is ensuring you have enough lead in on all areas to avoid the penetration of the arc from leaving a divet on an edge

Hon,

Thanks for the feedback. I think I understand what you are saying about the divet.

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I suggest doing test cuts on a sample of the stock you plan to use. The maximum current for the fine cut consumables is 40amps. Start there and work down. Dynatorch has published data indicating a kerf width of .015” in somewhat thicker material. They also recommend that hole diameter should be 3 times the thickness of the material (3/80”) in your case.

You might consider including registration marks (a small hole, L, or X) in two or three corners to aid in aligning the layers. These could be covered with tape once alignment is settled.

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Not sure if the purpose of the magnets and iif essential this clearly won’t work, but you could get great detail using thin acrylic and laser cutting it.

As mentioned, registration would be easy using small holes or even duplicated small objects from previous layers (covered to avoid painting) to line the stencil up.

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