[Sewing] what fabrics can be cut with laser cutters?

[Rose White]

When Kelly Farrell played around with the laser cutter and fabric at NYC
Resistor, she found that it would cut natural wool felt well, but that it
left a brown burned edge (similar to the edge you see when cutting wood) and
the very particular smell of singed hair. Felt made from man-made fibers
also cut reasonably well, but left hard edges (where the fibers had
presumably melted).

Diana Eng did some work cutting out stencil-like shapes from poly-cotton
broadcloth, like that in some men's dress shirts, and got a good mix of
clear shapes without fraying/melting. She then appliqued those onto another
shirt -- the total result was awesome. Plain cotton left a thin brown edge
that *could* fray, but didn't immediately; it seemed that if the edges were
either stitched over with satin stitch, or a line run just inside the edge
(either straight or tiny zig-zag), that it would be fine (depending on the
look you want).

Unfortunately, I don't know if either of them posted photos of the
experimentation they did, or the settings they used. :/

Good luck and have fun!

-- Rose/yarnivore


On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 3:09 PM, meredith scheff <satiredun at gmail.com>wrote:

> additionally, has anyone had experience with seaming to pieces of
> artificial material with the laser cutter?
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 3:02 PM, Rachel McConnell <rachel at xtreme.com>wrote:
>
>> This is also a good point to consider!  Again testing is key.  Wool
>> blends might be a reasonable compromise between artificial fibers and
>> fraying.  Also of course it depends on the look you're going for.
>>
>> Kelly wrote:
>> > My guess would be that in theory anything can, but it may leave an
>> > edge which will fray. I was asking Rachel about this recently and it
>> > seems like anything synthetic will likely melt and make a good edge,
>> > but most natural fibers will fray. Perhaps felted wool could be cut on
>> > a laser cutter?
>> >
>> > -Kelly
>> >
>> > On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 14:50, meredith scheff <satiredun at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >> also, what cannot be cut?
>> >> Im looking mainly at fleeces and wools, but I'm also curious abut other
>> >> fabrics.
>> >> Meredith
>> >>
>> >> --
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>> who
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>> unique to
>> >> them. ." -Semir Zeki
>> >>
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>
>
>
> --
> doing stuff and making things
> ---
> "The function of all art ... is an extension of the function of the visual
> brain, to acquire knowledge; ...artists are, in a sense, neurologists who
> study the capacities of the visual brain with techniques that are unique to
> them. ." -Semir Zeki
>
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