Making a Redsail Laser Cutter Fence .. on the Redsail Laser Cutter

If you’re using the Redsail Laser Cutter at the Vancouver Hack Space safely then the worst that can happen is your cuts don’t cut. The laser goes around, you smell the burning, and when you touch the pieces to lift them from the bed the whole sheet moves because – whoops – the beam didn’t go all the way through. Now that you’ve moved the sheet, you’ll just have to scrap that cut and try again.

So the next time you lean into the machine you put one hand down to hold the sheet and with the other you nudge the piece. Yay, one of the cuts worked! …kinda. The interior holes didn’t cut completely and there’s a few funny spots that .. aw, heck, you moved the hand that shouldn’t move.

Clearly, there’s a need for a better way. Something that will make it easy to hold the sheet at the same place for each cut to waste less material. It can’t stick up above the material or the laser head might hit it. It has to be made of material that the laser can safely cut, just in case. Something easy to make again would be ideal. Something that doesn’t damage the machine when it’s installed (no bolting or gluing or welding).

I noticed a gap at the front of the machine, just inside the door. Using a few scrap pieces of material I cut a simple two piece system. slot them together in the gap, push it to the far left, and you now have a right angle fence to line up your cuts.

If you need to make another, look in Desktop > Laser User Files > Dan R > Fence.

It’s not perfect. Can you improve on the design? Let me know by commenting below or in our forums.