Looking into cutters, target material is 2mm cardboard, will this work?
Hello. I'm looking to buy a cutter to basically do some tokens for boardgames. My target material is gray cardboard, 1mm or 2mm (preferred 2, but I can live with 1 if that's the only thing I'll be able to do), with sticker paper on top. Of course if I had the machine I'd use it for other stuff too, but that's basically the use case I'm using to justify the expense to myself. I'm wondering if it will work or if that's too thick/hard for these machines.
Thanks!
Posted Aug 22, 2022, 1:03 PM UTC
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If you intend to cut cardboard on a regular basis, the cuts will require multiple passes to complete and your blade will dull quickly.
You may want to consider a diode or CO2 laser cutter instead. Lasers have no blades to replace and can complete the cut in a single pass.
The drawback of using lasers is the smoke created needs to be vented outside and they should never be used to cut vinyl*.
*(laser cutting vinyl produces chlorine gas)
I have both and I use the Silhouette cutter for vinyl and the laser for cardstock and cardboard.
A little info on lasers:
Diode lasers are generally cheaper and lower maintenance, but they are also less powerful and slower than a CO2 laser. Look carefully at the wattage rating. Several diode lasers are marketed as 90 Watts or more when the laser output is only 5 Watts. Rule of thumb, if the wattage rating is greater than 10 Watts and costs less than $500 dollars, the laser output is probably around 5 Watts.
CO2 lasers require water cooling for the laser tube and the mirrors need to be cleaned regularly but they are faster and much more powerful than a diode laser.
Thanks, that probably means that this is not the right tool for what I wanted to accomplish.
About the laser cutter, does it cut "cleanly", as in no charring of the surrounding material?
It depends on the material and the power of the laser. With my laser cutter (10 Watt diode) there is less charring if I use the air assist and make multiple passes, but it's hard to eliminate it completely.
A higher wattage CO2 laser would produce less, but I don't have one of those so it's hard for me to say by how much.
Depending on the size of your tokens (assuming they are round), you might be able to use a piece of pipe as a die cutter. Sharpen a bevel on one end, cap the other end, place over you token design, and hit it with a hammer. Cheaper than a plotter or a laser cutter, lots of sizes available, and easy to re-sharpen.
Thanks for the info. The laser cutter is a completely different price, but there's other fun stuff I can use it for, and it's something I've been wanting to get for a long time. Still, all this is very pricy in my country, so it's really hard to justify for something that, for me, is basically just a toy.
Nice tip for the round counters. I've made a few square counters using a manual sliding cutter, works well for 1mm cardboard, at least (but the blade isn't deep enough for 2mm). I'll see if I can figure out how to sharpen the edges of a piece of pipe. Still, I wanted to make tokens with weirder shapes, that's why I was looking into this kind of cutters.
Thanks!