I am currently undertaking a project utlising laser technology to create a piece of jewellery. Before deciding upon which technology to use the School of Jewellery gave the students of Design For Industry a set of mini projects exploring 5 different uses of Laser technology. We looked into laser: cutting, scanning, sintering, engraving and welding. All of which I had no experience of previous to starting this course so it was a very insightful experience. Laser cutting We began with laser cutting. Which as you will see in my previous post we were able to utilise the machine to create a Christmas decoration. In my last post I explained to you about my decoration and went a little into how I made it. I used Rhino to develop my idea and made sure to use the RGB settings to colour the lines, red to cut, blue to engrave and black to raster. The laser cutter then registers these colours as where to perform each function. When the machine is started the laser burns away the material and leaves a gap where the laser has fired. It is important when designing for laser cutting that you are aware of the thickness of line the laser will cut and offset the lines. This is so that when the laser cuts down the offset line the burn will leave the desired shape. Laser scanning Scanning commercially can be seen for scanning in people to make novelty gifts however using the technology to its full extent we can replicate historic items that would be too delicate or valuable to work on repairing the existing piece. This is called reverse manufacturing. We were able to get a demonstration from the Tech Hub in the School of Jewellery and were able to have a go ourselves at scanning something into the computer. Laser sintering We were first introduced to this in the Tech Hub when we were given a talk about their new Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) machine. We were also lucky enough to see some sample pieces from Cookson Gold which had been sintered in gold. These were very detailed pieces with intricate pieces. The laser sintering machine works with fine metal powder which is deposited in layers, the laser then welds layers of the object together. Once one layer is finished the machine sweeps another layer across and the laser works on the next layer. This is a very effective way of creating intricate shapes in metal that would not be possible through more traditional manufacturing techniques. The other side of laser sintering is sintering in Nylon. We were very lucky to be able to visit the Digits 2 Widgets workshop in London. I found this very interesting as you could create very intricate works and also flexible items. It works in the same way as DMLS with fine nylon powder bring melted with a laser. Except with nylon selective laser sintering (sls) you don't need any supports, so the files can be built on top of each other. This is because of the weight of the nylon and the powder itself acting as the support. This is something I would definitely like to explore for my next project. Laser engraving A company in the jewellery quarter called Geti specialise in laser engraving. For this task we had a talk from Rhianne one of their employees who showed us how to use Coral draw to make a black an white pattern. Similar to laser cutting this black and white RGB colour pattern would then indicate to the laser where to cut. White patches are avoided and Black patches are engraved. Laser welding I have never done anything like this before so I was a bit scared when I first started. The idea of firing a laser in close proximity to my hand frightened me a bit. But once I got over my initial fear it was actually quite enjoyable. As you can see in the pictures below it looks like something out of a high tech laboratory but once you understand it it's actually an extremely handy technique to learn. So to explain a little bit more. Laser welding is a very precise way to join metals. It is typically used when soldering or other joining methods would be too fiddly or damage the piece. For example if there were some beautiful stone settings. On the other hand laser welding can be good for repairing jewellery that wouldn't be suitable to be reheated in the soldering process this is good for platinum and cast jewellery pieces. After getting to understand a bit more about each of these technologies I am really interested in exploring laser sinterinng in more detail. Especially in Nylon SLS as I think that the flexible aspect of it is truely facinating.
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