Emily & I got our hands on a roll of tyvek and went to town.
FAIL: YOU CAN'T PRINT ON IT ON THE SCHOOL PLOTTERS.
There are a lot of different kinds of tyvek and we're not sure what kind we have. You can inkjet print on a type of tyvek that has a special coating. Unfortunately, we never figured out if ours has said coating because the plotter kept scrunching it up. The edges of the sheet are kind of wavy and we considered ironing it, but the internet quickly confirmed that would just melt it.
WIN: YOU CAN LASER CUT IT!
We played around with settings on the laser cutter and successfully cut and scored the tyvek. Not quite cutting through = scoring for easy folds. We found the settings that worked best for the x-600 were the ones posted on the wall for 1/16" chipboard.
FAIL: YOU (probably) CAN'T USE THE LASER CUTTER TO FUSE TYVEK TO ITSELF
I read a post on a super nerdy blog where someone had tried to laser through a double layer of tyvek and ended up fusing the two layers together on accident. I thought maybe I could do this on purpose by lasering three sides of double layer to create a pouch-like-container. Instead, the laser just cut through the top layer. I think if I slowed the speed down I would have a better chance of melting and not cutting, but our time was up on the laser cutter at this point.
ALSO: We received an order of shade cloth from McMaster Carr, but not in time to do anything with it by today except take a photo.
WISH LIST: Tyvek tape and sexy shade cloth from Sweden.
Please tell me the type and power of the laser you used to cut this tyvek. The results look great (no burned edges).
ReplyDeleteCheck out some settings from this year's class.
ReplyDeletehttp://worldisflatspr12.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/tyvek_experiments/
Very interesting blog. Alot of blogs I see these days don't really provide anything that I'm interested in, but I'm most definately interested in this one. Just thought that I would post and let you know.Tyvek Suit
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