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Laser for cutting marquetry?

Is anyone using their laser to cut wood veneer or perhaps mother of pearl to use in marquetry or inlay projects? I am experimenting with this and making progress, just wondering if anyone has any tips or shortcuts they could offer.


The laser can cut wood veneer, I don’t know about “mother of pearl” from other places but the shell laminates work great. I have personally inlaid wood into 1/4 acrylic and due to the nature of the laser beam they fit together real tight. One project no glue whatsoever, just fit together and sprayed poly on it and it was done.

The way I do it is engrave the areas you want to inlay your material and then convert the drawing to no fill and just send cut lines. Usually fits first try, if you engraved deep enough it may stick up just a little but that gives you the chance to sand the entire part and make flush.

Have fun the possibilities are almost endless.


I have done only a few inlays, I think it looks great, but haven’t been able to try very many. Please share any tips or photos you get. I love to see good woodworking.


A laser will cut mother of pearl depending on power and the thickness, the higher the power the cleaner the cut. You can get a small bottle of nitrogen and attach it to the air assist if you have charring problems, this displaces the oxygen that causes charring.

Veneers are real easy. What we often do is use double sided mounting film (its a double sided tape with a carrier available from any graphic finishing supply house / 3m / craft shops) and apply the veneer to it , IE you have now made the veneer self adhesive. We then use the laser to kiss cut the veneer. ALL the elements are in place now and no bits fall out. The beauty of this is that you get both a “positive” and “negative” from the sheet. If you use the exact file on another colour veneer, you can create 2 images. Even if you are not doing this “double inlay”, the pieces you cut are self adhesive and flat and can easily be inserted into cavities etc.

Air assist when cutting veneers can be a problem, too strong a jet causes the small pieces to be blown away, the doubles sided adhesive thing stops this too.

Another tip is to use paper based vinyl application tape on top of the veneers before cutting, this stops all resin staining and minimizes edge charring. Apart from this, you can kiss cut the paper tape, peel it off to reveal areas of veneer that can then be painted/sprayed which allows you to both cut the veneer and allows you to, lets say, spray gold accents on it. Another tip is to use the same low tack vinyl application tape or masking tape to “pick up” the parts you cut.

We also use 3mm low density “supawood” and apply a veneer to both faces , this is used as a substitute to thin woods (for coasters , wooden ornaments etc) . Solid woods cut to 3-4mm warp etc and you can’t get large sheets of it. You can use this for inlays too, just laser away the top layer and insert the vector cut piece. Apart from just cutting veneers, they can also be laser engraved at the same time, leading to all sorts of other effects.

You can be very creative with wood, combining lots of other materials.

We have CnC machines as well as lasers and often do metal inlays in wood as well as using our large format overhead router to do stuff a laser cant (beveled or shaped edging etc) We use vector cutting tables (those honeycomb ones) when cutting, ideally the cell sizes of these tables should be real small for fine veneer cutting so the pieces don’t drop inside a cell.


Where does one get a “small bottle of nitrogen”?


Try welding supply house. The ‘IG’ of MIG & TIG is ‘Inert Gas’ The Nitrogen is the cheap part. The bottle & regulator will be a small or big investment depending on your point of view. Check Ebay, Harbor Freight, local classifieds.

Beware of: High Pressures, DO NOT mix Oxygen & Oil (Instant Explosion) also make sure it’s Nitrogen not Nitrous Oxide. New may be a better alternative, some bottles require ownership/certification papers to be refilled. Will need to be retested at some point. It’s been a while since I’ve dealt with this though. A welding supply may be the best & Safest place to start. Also they should be able to refill.


Well the average or above average Joe will NOT generally be able to get Nitrous Oxide.

And the regulator for Nitrogen will not even fit an Oxygen Cylinder.(at least I’ve never seen one that would)

I have a MIG welder and I’ve used Oxy-Acetylene in the past.

Welding shops will allow you to rent a cylinder or let you buy one and you’d just drive up swap out your cylinder for another one and pay for the gas and be on your merry way. You’ll have to do the math on that one. I’ve rented tanks in the past and I bought the one for my MIG setup, as it would simply be cheaper in the long run as you can’t run the welder without any gas. So I always have to have gas.

As a safety note, the cylinders are HIGH PRESSURE and should be changed to the wall at ALL times. Even if the cover is on the Cylinder (regulator removed).

And when you mount the regulator and then first open the tank valve, DO NOT FACE the Gauges. The front of those gauges is the weakest part and if there is going to be a major failure, you’ll end up with a face/eye full of parts.

I work in research and the number of people that want to watch the needles jump up is amazing. Probably a lot of one-eyed research technicians out there that I’ve not met yet.

Also it is a good idea if you aren’t going to use the gas regularly to back out the pressure adjustment so you don’t keep the regulator internals under needless tension.

Good luck and be safe.


If you just want to run a test ‘maybe’ I can do it - might not be too quick though. I’d have to check the status of our welding equip. I haven’t used it in a while. If you want to pursue, let me know. The welding equip is all at my brothers & I’ll get it sorted out. I forgot about the Nitrogen cylinder on our MIG machine!!! provided my bro never $old it.

I hope I didn’t offend you with my answer, I’m just ultra busy lately & didn’t want to go into a long post then & there. I had just experienced going through my first tornado a couple hours before, so maybe I was in Dorothy mode. The high pressure is scary if you dwell on it. The oxygen & oil/grease reaction is the most horrific thing you’d want to see. The Nitrous; I was kinda half joking - but the stuff ain’t that hard to get. You’re not an ‘Average Joe’ you own a laser. I may have irritated that guy. My friend was blown up (& lived) because someone didn’t know of the oil/oxygen danger. At one time welding was big around here. Most problems occurred because someone didn’t know or assumed someone knew. The guy was right about looking away. Saw 2 photos of that type of injury. My friend attributes being alive & having 2 eyes to looking away. He left out 1 or 2 things but he’s basically correct & well meaning. The stuff about protecting the cylinder valves is dead on. Some people make safety cages to further protect.

I was told the safest way is to: Open Cylinder valve - Blow out short burst of gas - Close Cyl. vlv. - with no regulator/gauge - this cleans it out - in case of oil on oxygen cyl. you’re gauge doesn’t blow. (still get giant exploding ball of flame minus the shrapnel.)

Install guages - back regulator out to zero (should be there already) LOOK AWAY - open cyl vlv - then turn up reg to pressure.

To reverse process Close cyl valve - bleed of gas in line - back reg to zero

I’ve been told by many always have regulator at zero when opening cyl. vlv. - Plus for storage like the guy posted.

If you do buy/rent make sure the people give you the safety info. They also assume everyone knows everything. I’m not trying to scare you - I’ve just heard the horror stories. I was welding 15-20 yrs ago - so I’m not up to date on things. Most people understand after seeing what can happen, they just don’t think/know about it before hand. The guys that deal with the cylinders all the time wear instep protection. I’m sure that came about the hard way. I know I never realized about that hazard. Some gases (forget which) stay in your lungs unless someones saves you by holding you upside down. There was a time when I didn’t know this & I’m glad I never found out the hard way. Please forgive me if you already knew these things.

PS My brother also got ‘Blowed Up’ once. No welding equipment involved. Not completely his fault - but became completely his problem.


No problem - was just interested in seeing whether this would truly reduce charring and smoke build-up…


It definitely DOES reduce charring etc, however some materials actually rely on an oxygen reaction or “burn” (like wood engraving) so it’s not universally useful.

We use nitrogen (or any inert gas) for fabrics, papers, abs, polycarbonate etc. Very useful for cutting thru multiple paper layers.

You can easily rent a bottle from any air or gas supplier and you can plumb it into the air assist line. Oxygen is also a useful gas for processing stainless steel etc, but its more for the big industrial lasers.DONT mess with oxygen, VERY small amounts WILL promote violent reactions and fires.

Nitrous oxide is an oxygen carrier, it breaks down under heat and pressure - so its used in automotive engines, basically you can burn more fuel in the cylinder due to the extra O2 and thus the engine thinks and develops the power of a much bigger motor (the more air you can shift, the more fuel you can burn, the more power a motor makes, its basically a big air pump)


Thanks for all the suggestions. The problem I’m currently having is unacceptably large gaps between pieces due to the width of the laser cut. I’ve posted a picture of my second attempt at marquetry, titled “Marquetry with big gaps” in the HRI folder in the Photos section to show the problems I’m having. In this attempt, I did apply a .005″ contour line to all pieces to be cut, making them either smaller or bigger depending on whether I was cutting a piece, or a hole. It helps, but there is still some sloppiness to be eliminated. I’m suspecting that the different veneers might in the end require different amounts of laser power to eliminate “overburn” during the cuts. Experimentation and perseverance seem to be in order. Power on.


I tried and also had the same issue - the ‘kerf’ from the laser was too wide. I was told to enlarge the inlay by the approximate width of the beam (.007″ for the 2″ lens on my Epilog). That improved things a bit. I don’t know if you’re going to get as good a fit as with razor cut veneer.

One thing I thought about doing but haven’t tried yet is to wet the inlay pieces before glue-up. This will cause the veneer to swell a bit an may improve the fit. Make sure to weigh down the inlay as it dries to avoid warpage then you’ll have to smooth sand it to knock down the grain that the water raises. Soaking in alcohol vs. water may provide the same result with shorter dry time and less raised grain.


What focal length lens are you using? Wouldn’t using shorter focal length lens yield smaller kerf?


May part of the issue of a larger kerf be due to the fact the veneer is not laying completely flat as it is being cut. If it is warped what so ever, as the material lifts off the cutting table to which the laser was focused the width of the kerf will enlarge and make the gap larger. If you cut a second inlay they may not be exactly the same size as the second veneer may be warped in a different location go thus the gap would be at a different location and the two cut pieces will be different. Bottom line is to insure the media is tight against the vector table. I use pieces of florist glass to weight down light material such as cotton twill for quilting.

There is a “sticky pad” available to help eliminate this issue. Not sure what it is called but I know Mike from LaserBits is a firm believer in them.


Good point. I have been paying more attention to getting pieces flat, but perhaps not enough. I recently made up a few pieces of thin aluminum channel filled with lead shot and epoxy to use as weights and they help (had to find something that my autofocus probe would clear). What is “florist glass” and do I want some?


A vacuum box is the answer to getting stuff flat, the sicky mat is fine, but is VERY expensive and with cutting applications is a disaster as it gets ruined real quick. Perfect for engraving thin films but not ideal for cutting. Called magic mat where I live, we use it on a LOT of our machinery to keep stuff stuck down, will even hold small brass plates on our Cnc machines for engraving. Wonderful stuff!!

To build a vacuum box is simple, use a shop light duty vac or, if you got a serious extraction fan, take a feed off that for vacuum. any sealed box will do, use an aluminum top plate and drill a whole lot of small holes in it and attach the vacuum to a fitting on the side of the box, find a way of leading the vacuum hose into the laser (we actually use our main extractor tube and feed the smaller diameter tube into this).

Use anodised aluminum, preferably black, it acts as a “stop” for the laser, it absorbs and doesn’t reflect laser light back. A vacuum table will also aid in smoke and resin vapour evacuation and allow cleaner and better cuts. Air assist blowing is often the culprit when veneer lifts or moves when being cut. Most people use far too much.

A 1.5″ lens will give a smaller spot size and thus a narower kerf. Precise Focus is vital with a 1.5″ lens so tune your autofocus. The lenses used on most engraving lasers are real cheapy ones and do very little for beam quality, you can get a collimater type lens to put in the beam path that can actually decrease spot size and “refine” the beam.

Apart from that , beam alignment is also critical , the beam must hit the final lens dead centre (if it doesn’t you get “slanted” cuts , far less power density , incorrect focus point and a far wider spot) Experiment with the ppi setting of the laser as well if you have this option , dropping ppi often gives a better and thinner cut. The PPI (pulses per inch) setting is sort of like a perforator, basically the laser “drills” small holes which overlap, high ppi can give a lot of overlap and thus an “overburn” and a wider kerf as well as a lot of charring. Too low and your cut looks like a postage stamp. You can easily compensate for kerf width by using the outline/inline command in corel and offsetting the item in the relevant direction. Programs like signlab with an engraving module have “automatic” compensation.

If doing this in Corel, you often find the resulting offset line has zillions of nodes, you can reduce these to make the drawing less cumbersome by using the node tool , selecting all nodes and typing in a figure like 40 or 50 in the little radio box that appears when you have selected all nodes. Do this to a COPY of the out or inline, cos sometime node reduction changes the shape and you can compare to the original.


What I call “florist glass” are the glass pieces used in the bottom of vases when they make floral arrangement. This way they stick the flower stems in and the glass pieces move to allow the stem to penetrate but then the glass keep the stems in that position. Some are round very similar to a marble but not as perfect. The glass chunks I have are a little larger than an old half dollar coin in diameter and are approximately 3/8 inch thick. Bottom is flat but top is rounded a little. Almost looks as if then they were made they simply dripped molten glass onto a flat surface and allowed them to cool in what ever shape they arrived at. Being a fluid to begin with they naturally seek a rounded shape and then the top sags in a little. Not sure if this helps but maybe some one else will understand and share their description. My original thought was to use them to etch on the bottom solely for discussion pieces.

As far as running out to find them, NO I would not recommend that as I am sure there are other parts and pieces laying around the laser or in the trash container that will do equally as well.

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