GoonerGary;139805 wrote:Using a saw or cutter leaves a cut with ridges and rough, whereas the laser leaves it very smooth as it melts the edges. The cost didn't bother me at the time as it was a high end product, but if you're doing small cheap items, I can understand that you'll need to keep costs low. I'll see if I can find the link later.
Id definately rather use a machine because the image will be a name with a horse each end fab, thank you - im still in the research stage so will factor in costs etc
If you're planning on going into production with dyesubbed acrylic items I'd strongly advise pressing some offcuts first to check results before committing to any serious outlay. I found the results, while great at times, were too inconsistent for quality products.
I was making clocks and wanted to dyesub the clock face directly to white acrylic then bend the sheet into a stand. Due to the aforementioned inconsistent results, I ended up sublimating the clock face onto a square aluminium sheet which the centre nut on the clock kept in place, tightly against the acrylic, and results were much better, enabling me to sell the products without any comeback.
BTW, while we're discussing this, I've also tried sublimating an image onto clear adhesive film (from I-Sub) and affixing that to the acrylic. It looked fine, but had a couple of air bubbles that just wouldn't squeegee out.
fab, thank you - im still in the research stage so will factor in costs etc 