Plan on burning through a few blanks before you finally dial in your
settings. Consider it "R&D" costs.
And since you're speaking to Ken, ask him if he can crank out some
bored maple blanks for you. You'll get blanks without tubes, which you
really want for doing the inlays. You can't really turn your own blanks
easily without gluing in tubes, but you don't want them permanently
attached when you go to laser them. So this is a good option for you.
Slip a tube inside the blank and put that in your rotary. When it is done,
slip the tube back out. Then go wash all the gunk off of your hands.
(really.. they'll be covered in resin!) Then wash the blank in alcohol or
acetone to get the gunk out of your blank. A plastic brush (toothbrush,
veggie brush etc.) will help clean the blank. A test tube brush is perfect
for cleaning the insides of the blank.
Also, consider dipping the blanks in plexitone before putting them in
the laser. It keeps the gunk down and gives a little cleaner cut, since
the maple is rather soft and the vector cuts can be hit or miss as far
as edge quality. Maple can be pretty inconsistent, so you'll hit hard and
soft spots all over the place, and they don't cut the same. Plexi can
help even this out.
just make sure the tube still slips in easily after the plexi. It doesn't take
much.. just a quick dip, so it shouldn't really change your ID that much.
