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Welding gas and laser engraver

Today we tried a test to see the effect of using a inert welding gas in place of the air assist. The theory was that when engraving wood or leather, that the results with an inert gas would be lighter (less burnt) than if the material has oxygen to burn with the material.

Much to my surprise, there was no difference between air and co2/argon with wood or leather.


That’s because the burns are not really burns with these 2 materials, they are resin residues etc. If you try with thin papers or stuff like thin polycarbonate, you will see a marked difference. We use nitrogen when cutting poly or paper and want to minimise discolouration. When you do this, you need to adjust PPI setting as well as too many PPI result in heat overload and no inert gas will help and too little results in a sort of perforation rather than a cut. This works mainly for cutting applications rather than engraving (the gas and PPI stuff).

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