Shopsmith Forums

My son came home from school today very excited because the school woodshop just installed a new Epilog laser engraver. He will have an opportunity to use it in his second semester shop class.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4A_zRPVjxc[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfEYYiSetfM[/youtube]

I am pleased to hear that there are schools that still teach shop classes as part of the school curriculum.

That's pretty cool. What is the maximum thickness it can cut through?

We have place locally here in Huntington Beach that has a good size operation that allows you to buy a membership and then rent time on the laser engravers by the hour. My son took me to a demo night there. They give classes which are free after you buy the membership. The software is free I think so you can do the design work at home and then take the project to their shop and do the engraving. They have a few good size engravers there. The piece has to be completely inside the machine because they flood it with ( I think) argon. That prevents the wood from igniting. As far as the amount of relief they will engrave it is pretty impressive. Very cool stuff. The resolution that they can achieve in the engraving is nothing short of amazing. I am impressed that a High School shop would have that level of sophistication. They are quite expensive machines.
Paul

masonsailor2 wrote:I am impressed that a High School shop would have that level of sophistication. They are quite expensive machines.
Paul

I'm told it was donated anonymously by an alumni. The only stipulation being that it is made available to all high school students.

My son informed me that although the machine is in the wood shop, it is indeed available to all students for any school related project.

mountainbreeze wrote:That's pretty cool. What is the maximum thickness it can cut through?

I haven't been able to find that on their web site. They list a maximum thickness that will fit in the various Epilog models, but no mention of max depth of cut. I'll ask my son when he gets home.