Laser Engraving & Cutting – Materials

Make your mark! We engrave wood, fabric, glass, paper, rubber and more! This chart shows a list of materials which are safe to engrave or cut with our CO2 Laser.

Lasers essentially vaporize the materials they touch. The laser acts like a chisel, vaporizing the material in a localized area to engrave permanent marks.

A combination of settings like Power, Speed and Frequency can change the effect. A higher speed and lower power will only etch the surface. Slowing down the speed and increasing the power can engrave, or even cut the material.

Because the material is vaporized, certain materials can give off harmful gasses which are unsafe. Many plastic contain harmful chemicals like Hydrogen Chloride, or Vinyl Chloride like in PVC. The gasses produced by lasering these materials can cause irreparable damage to the machine.

Some of the material we CAN NOT laser are:

ABS

Epoxy

Polypropylene

PVC (Poly Vinyl Chloride)/Artificial Leather/Pleather/Vinyl

Fiberglass

Polycarbonate/Lexan™ Thick (>1 mm)

Coated Carbon Fiber

HDPE/Milk Bottle Plastic

Glued Materials – like plywood and mdf.