Laser Cutting and Engraving Cardboard (Fibrous and Corrugated)
I had a box of Stouffers Lasagna with meat & sauce and another of Honey Nut Cheerios, before throwing them into the recycling box, I figured it would be fun to bring them into CNCROi.com HQ and see what happened when they were introduced to a CNC laser for some engraving cardboard. The boxes are made-up of two different types of cardboard that I would never noticed before as I couldn’t see just below their respective surfaces, one is fibrous while the other corrugated.
Instead of looking at two pictures right away, take a look at the two videos I produced recording the entire laser engraving and cutting process. First, the Stouffers Lasagna with meat & sauce cardboard box. It had some burning along the edges, probably because the box wasn’t flat but the fibrous material itself didn’t lend itself all that well to the CNC laser engraving cardboard process.
Now, take a look at the Honey Nut Cheerios, this box moved around on the bed as it was being engraved and cut but regardless, the results are actually better than the static Stouffers Lasagna with meat & sauce cardboard box. The corrugated cardboard box provided way better contrast.
If this was for a client, I’d definitely put some weights on both boxes and spend a bit more time getting them 100% right but for material testing, even with these issues, it’s still very much a valid test to learn and optimize from.
Now that we have that out-of-the-way, let’s look at some cool Stouffers Lasagna with meat & sauce micro explosions of vaporised cardboard shall we?
The best part of working at CNCROi.com is producing sparks on steel and micro explosions across a bunch of different materials, this is no different with engraving cardboard.
It’s surprisingly hard to catch them just as they happen as they are only there for a fraction of a second, especially when it comes to try to photograph while the cardboard is engraving.
Sometimes they are unique and singular in appearance and other times, just coming out of each segment touched by our Austrian Trotec Speedy 400 flexx CNC laser!
They were especially prominent with this fibrous cardboard engraving, it isn’t particularly strong or thick which is why it’s so easy to break by hand but wow, lots of fireworks out of this box!
Looking at it from a few different angles really shows how high they are, generally over a centimeter and sometimes even two centimeters high of the cardboard surface!
After watching that, the cutting was kinda boring… just straight fire, engraving cardboard or any other material produces, generally, more interesting results than cutting.
But the results of the cutting were incredibly sharp, looks great! Here are a bunch of shots from various angles to give you a better view of how clean the cutting was done with our CNC laser.
Taking the maple leaf out, you can see how clearly and cleanly the maple leaf was cut out of the box, the resolution or quality of the cutting is the same we achieve with engraving cardboard.
Well, that was fun! Next-up was our Honey Nut Cheerios cardboard box! It was a higher quality box and the results were equally better.
As you can see from the above picture, this cardboard box had a few more issues than the previous one so my expectations were actually lower on this one as a result.
Yep, more awesome micro explosions when engraving into this, the difference was the really cool corrugated texture it revealed instead of the fiber I got off the Stoffers box.
After the engraving was done, it was time to see the results from CNC laser cutting this corrugated cardboard.
Some cool flames and then the maple leaf fell straight down just like it did with the previous box. That’s a good cut!
Let’s take a look at that corrugation a little closer, what an awesome texture that’s revealed engraving cardboard.
The CNCROi.com CNC laser vaporised the first layer but left next one completely intact even if it wasn’t even.
Putting it all together, looks pretty good!
Application wise, as you can see, our Austrian CNC laser is able to accurately cut and engrave cardboard and we can easily add onto our machine a camera that reads registration marks allowing for precise cutting no matter the orientation or scale of the project that needs to be cut. Got some cardboard you want cut? CNCROi.com is the company to help you out!