My Laser won’t cut out my wood design all the way! 

Thanks so much for you informative videos...its so important for ppl to learn about the process of manufacturing wood pieces so that they can better understand the real issue and how to resolve them. Thanks for taking the time to do this!!!! I really appreciate yiur efforts!

great information! I appreciate all your tips and tricks! I binge watched a ton of your videos all day Saturday....Learned so much! Thank you!

YOU ARE ALWAYS SO KIND AND HELPFUL. IT IS MUCH APPRECIATED

Incredible advice as always! This will be VERY helpful. Thank you! Love your videos.

I found the start from recently. What a life saver

Thank you SO much for what you do for our laser community. You have helped me so much.

Loved the videos. I've only been into laser cutting for a little over a year now. Started on a Diode and have since upgraded to a C02. I have identified all of the issued you have listed and always thought I was doing something wrong. Now I know. I'm still learning - just now figuring out how to cleanly cut 3mm MDF with my 50w co2 (and I'm having issues but I'll figure things out). Thanks again and I've subscribed.

Start here. Amazing, it's under my nose and I never paid attention to it. That is a top tip, thank you.

You are very competent in what you do, thank you very much for all you videos! I'm a new in this field and I need you help please.

thank you for your suggestions. Worked great. I fiddled around with the speed and didnt touch the power. Great advise

Thanks for your hard work and videos. I just received a Creality Falcon 2 - 22 watt diode laser and have a lot of learning to do.

Oh that is what I was looking for, The start over from the goof. I was engraving on a door mat and the computer stopped, I didn't have it plugged in and the battery died, and I was trying to figure out how to start it where it stopped, now I know how to start it and finish my burn. Thanks for this. I learn so much from ur video's.

EXCELLENt info as always. THANK YOU!!!!

great topic. i ran into this last week with a different plywood from lowes.

Good tips and I didn’t know the trick of recutting a spot…as always, you have a very informative video that’s easy to understand!

Thanks for sharing all your great information!

Great confirmation to what we are experiencing and attempting to learn from. When you're a newbie, it's tough to tell if it's us, or is it the material? A few things have pushed us to add enhancements to our system which has been very helpful, yet not a 100% solve all. We experienced the "I can't cut through this" with 1/8" (3mm) birch ply with our 10w in a few cases. Interestingly, a few sparks fly on occasion as well. So glad to know it's not just us, its more so material variances.

good information as always! thanks Robert!

Great tips ! Thanks for sharing

Great video. I'm running into this daily with 1/4 baltic birch. Was fulling my hair out on why I had to keep adjusting the power and speed.

This was such helpful information!!! Thanks so much!!!

Just ran into this exact issue today with my Epilog 24 x 36 dual source. 80w CO2/50w Fiber. I Was really bummed out since it was not a cheap machine and to find out it barely cut through 1/4” ply and in some places left a tiny amount of wood to keep part from breaking free. Well your video makes me feel better. After really looking at this ply it is a maple 5 distinct layer ply with the thin black looking glue between each layer. This is probably an outdoor tough wood. It left lots of soot and had a lot of glue cavities. I bought it from a specialty wood yard a paid a lot for it but in the end it’s just not laser ply. Thank you so much for your video it made me feel a lot better about my purchase.

You are such a awsome teacher

Thanks for all the great info

Great info! Very helpful thanks!

What your seeing in the different coloration of the MDF is the lighter colored one is softwood base and the darker is hardwood base. Chances are pretty good my company made that MDF. We are the 2nd largest manufacturer of engineered wood products in the world. We own 4 plants in America. Due to the weight of the board? The cost to ship it is very expensive.

Great info. Thanks!!!

Thank you! I run into that also if material is warped a little and needs another cut to finish.

Very helpful I appreciate it!

From my experience in the joinery industry it looks to me that the base material is HDF not MDF. If this is the case the substrate is denser and has a higher glue content. When machining HDF on a spindle CNC or a regular saw or any type of wood working machine, spindle speeds and fed speeds must be adjusted compared to MDF. Therefore, when I machine HDF on the laser I always do multiple passes and not try to cut through on one pass. As a foot note to your comments on the MDF/HDF today compared to yesteryear. Glue is cheaper than wood, so countries like China and others, increase the glue content and decrease the wood content to increase their profit margin. You only get what you pay for. Here in Australia most of our MDF/HDF is E0 or E1 which means it is low or does not contain UF glue which is cheap as chips. From experiance the darker the substrate the higher the glue content. Great video!

Thank you so much for this video, i was getting soo pissed that my laser was not cutting through my maple MDF and not i know way

I really love your videos, you've helped me so much since I got my Thunderlaser earlier this year. My question is twofold, how is your honeycomb so clean? And 2 how does the underside of your cut look as I find I almost need to sand the underside more than the top. Regards from Michael in Australia 🇦🇺 😀

Thank you!

Thanks!

Great Video - just what I needed. Unfortunately, being flexible means real dollars for the sheets that arent saveable. I've gone through several today and yesterday. Birch Ply. : ( costs are really mounting up. All profits are zeroed out and just looking to salvage the job to maintain reputation. : ( Im thinking on running the job twice for insurance that it might be successful. Thanks for posting the part about the pause then escape; that right there is worth all the money! the start from here is pretty awesome too. I may try to figure out a way to elevate the work off the honeycomb just a fraction so that I can see the fall and which ones don't.

Just getting into laser cutting and the content you put out is always very helpful. Thank you. Do you ever wish you went with 130w instead of a 100w?

Another great video. Lots of great info for the co1 newbie (I.E. myself). I just ordered the nova 35 100W, are you planning on do a review of it? I hope so, it would be of great interest to me and I am sure many others. Yours looks different than the pic Thunder has on their website. I hope you can do one. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. Dan :0)

great video as usual. i have a question about the power being at 80 and 90 i never go above 50 because I have read and heard others saying not to run it at more than half power I am having some issues with our birch lately and trying to find the new settings as you are talking about in the video

I was racking my brain today, trying to cut maple veneer mdf at 5 mm/sec at 60% power, I was stumped why it would t cut through, now I know and I have an OMTech 80 W

The key to root cause analysis is breaking the components of the process down to things that can be controlled.

Great Video. I just got my Thunder Nova 35 and still learning it. Do you every use masking over your wood projects to prevent the burning on the surface? What kind do you use?

Hi there! I have watched most of your videos and you're fabulous! I wish there was a way that you had an online class because I am Extremely frustrated with my xtool D1 pro. I can't get this machine to cut through ANY wood!!! I have trued multiple settings and different wood. NOTHING works. Any suggestions?

Thank you for the lesson, Now why was that last piece not usable? Looked fine to me!

Thank you for the video. Big help in my learning how to use the laser. I Have a 100 watt laser. When I cut squares I get a darker cut at corners. What is your settings to eliminate this issue? Thank you.

I haven't ever had the need to make multiple passes to cut through something, though I have when etching. Would you recommend not making multiple passes to cut through the "bionic" material if post production isn't an issue?

For the last part (cutting the uncut squares) next time do this : check the "Cut selected Graphics" button, select the 2 uncut squares and press start. Simple and elegant. No messing with the preview, no chance to cut again something that is already cut. Free advice ;)

Could a single scratch on the focus lens cause a significant power reduction? I was cutting 1/8 acrylic at 16/17mm @ 70% now it won't cut with even 10mm. In-between the te I last cut acrylic I had not cut a lot but I did cut maybe 20 pieces of birch. I was worried the mirror/lense was dirty so I brushed it with a lens brush. Any ideas?

80W Do you use a mA meter to determine power. My 100W W2 Reci tube recommends 24mA for max tube life which gives me max at 65W

I have a question: could you run it at 16mm per sec. 80 power with say 3 passes and cut thru without the charing?

Hello my friend. Thanks you for a great video. Could you please answer maybe 2 questions for me. 1 what watt and type laser are you using? If you mentioned it I somehow got distracted and missed it. I am brand new to lasers. I want to buy one and have wanted to for years. And I don’t want to start out with a cheapo low watt. 100 watt was what I really want with a decent size bed. Which laser would you recommend me to buy and if I put in the time to learn the laser and the work to build things, can I make a decent living with the laser being my only job? I feel like I have a good plan on how and where to sale my items and have several shop tools like miter slide saw, band saw, table saw and on and on already. I guess simply put, if I am determined, are my chances of succeeding good or bad? Probably hard to answer but hope you will try. And I will have to finance most of my laser. Thank you so much my friend. I have liked, commented and subscribed to your channel. Hope to hear back from you and look forward to any videos you have or will have. GOD bless…..

Great video, very informative. You said you get your 1/4" baltic Birch from a hardwood supplier, can you share the name or a link to the hardwood supplier you use? Thanks

What do you do when the settings for test square you cut worked just find but then the final cut didn't work? In my case, my test squares are cutting great, but my finger joint boxes are not cutting through (same material that the test cut did work). Thanks for your thoughts.

I’m running into an issue where my laser will shut off the laser In random parts completing a cut. Like if it’s a circle, there will be parts in that circle I tried to cut that the laser skipped causing it to not burn through the part of the circle. Any ideas ?

I just tried 3mm MDF. All the edges that were cut are covered with soot and I can't get it off, what a mess it makes. What do I do?

How an you tell what foal length lens in in a machine?

My laser is 10 W I just want to cut through 5 mm wood I’m so lost what should my settings be

Ebony takes 8-10 passes at 70% Bubinga also does not cut well (I am talking 3-4mm thick on these)

Like for preface

So essentially you’re saying to Not slow the cut down on the harder materials, but instead make a second pass equal to the strength of the first pass..?

I bet that is not glue but a wood knot in the middle layers, peel off the top layer to see

It's HDF

Yup, more glue…..less wood😂

Borrowed implies it'll be returned :)

Good morning i love your vids, BUT please don't fall into the same old trick of repeating and repeating and repeating, if people don't get it the first time they can always replay!

Thanks!