I found this website https://freesewing.org/ and thought “hey my MIL owes me a favor or two and enjoys sewing, and a friend of mine owes me a favor or two, might be worth it to take some measurements and get a nice shirt or two and perhaps a tie.” But then it dawned on me, how do you transition from a digital pattern to a physical one?
Actually what I’m asking is how do YOU make that transition? What does that part of your workflow look like? How do I help someone go from a simplicity pattern from Walmart, to a file I downloaded from a website?
Though other think its ok to cut fabric on the laser I’m very hesitant. There are safer ways to cut fabric CNC wise and they are fairly reasonably priced. I just have to have enough buy-in to get one or 2.
Have you tried it? As long as the laser is in focus and you use appropriate settings the risk of fire is very low. I’d think that washing the end product would get rid of any residual smell pretty easily.
No, but we do receive pieces from a client at work and know they have refused to outsource the work because of the issues they’ve had. Still with their inspection some things get through. I’ve seen laser cutters specifically built for fabrics and they have a limited list of recommendations for using to cut. I will try to find and post, its been a while.
I recently used the laser cutter to cut felt for a game board. I was using the synthetic fiber felt from hobby lobby. I was using it as a backing material for a hardboard cut out in a gaming system. At a very low power and at high speed it did a fantastic job. It was perfectly aligned to the game board.
I also tried a high power and it does throw hot sparks that melt the synthetic. The high laser also heats the screen bed and causes the synthetic material to melt.