Introduction: Acrylic Inlay Cabinet Door

About: Trotec Laser Canada provides laser engraving and laser cutting machines for processing a wide variety of materials. Cut, engrave and mark wood, paper, metal, acrylic, leather, stone, plastics and many more. O…

Ever inlaid acrylic inside wood? Well now you can! See how we placed an acrylic logo inside a wooden cabinet door.

Step 1: Place Masking Tape on the Front

We put the transfer mask on the prevent any staining or any side burning that could happen when we're laser cutting the piece out.

Step 2: Focusing the Laser

We would have to focus the laser not at the top of our cabinet door but in the middle of it. The problem arises when you focus to the top as we laser through the door itself, we can start to go out of focus. Focusing to the middle allows the laser beam to be consistent on the top and bottom of the object. You'll get a much better cut doing it that way. We program in the Z-depth by measuring the distance between the top and the middle, and then the table would automatically adjust to focus into the middle.

Step 3: Cutting the Wood

We laser cut the wood which is about 1/4" thick on a 80w Trotec Speedy 400 at 100 power and 0.3 Speed, and our Z-offset is -0.125 (for focusing into the middle).

Step 4: Cutting the Acrylic

To make our acrylic the same size, we need to increase the size of the acrylic by 0.05 inches which was what the kerf of the laser beam was that cut the wooden door. In CorelDraw, we do this using the outline contour tool.

Step 5: Inlaying the Acrylic Into the Wood

The acrylic should just snap right in, for any loose parts can be glued in using krazy glue or acrylic glue.

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