At American Flexible Products, our engineers utilize light to create intricate designs with precision and accuracy. Through laser cutting, a focused laser beam is used to make precise cuts and etches in a wide range of materials. With the aid of industrial computer-controlled equipment, we can shape your parts at an efficient pace without sacrificing quality.
But that’s just the start of the numerous advantages of using laser cutting for your custom flexible material fabrication. Let’s take a closer look at why customers consider laser cutting to be one of the most popular and useful choices when it comes to complicated design specs.
How Does the Laser Cutting Process Work?
Laser cutting is a process that involves using a high-energy laser beam to create a small, concentrated area of intense heat. This heat causes the material to quickly melt or vaporize, allowing the beam to accurately cut through the material with precision and speed. The gas blast removes the melted material, exposing the cut bottom to allow renewed melting and localized cooling, facilitating the cut.
Laser cutting and laser etching are used for both miniature and large parts, as well as for prototype and production quantities. At American Flexible Products, our material techs use laser cutting to shape your parts in three ways:
- Single-layer cutting slices through the entire material.
- Multi-layer cutting allows the laser beam to cut through two or more materials.
- Laser kiss cutting leaves each cut part on an adhesive release layer.
What are the Benefits of Laser Cutting?
The advantages of using laser cutting for your custom fabricating needs are numerous. Here are just a few of the biggest benefits of using laser cutting:
Quick Turn Prototypes
Rapid prototyping is a fantastic approach for developing products because it’s precise, cost-effective, and produces minimal waste. If you’re in need of speedy product development, laser cutting may be a viable option for you.
No Tooling Necessary
One of the biggest advantages of laser cutting, especially for rapid prototyping, is that it doesn’t require any tooling, making the entire process more efficient. Laser cutting also makes intricate designs possible with more polished edges, so no buffing is needed. As an added benefit, less maintenance is required for laser cutting because no blades have to be sharpened or replaced.
Better Precision
The high quality of laser cutting is due to the narrowness of the energy beam and the accuracy with which the material and/or laser optics can be maneuvered. This method enables the cutting of intricate designs at high feed rates, even in challenging or delicate material substrates.
Ability to Cut Through Multiple Flexible Materials
Since laser cutting is a flexible technology, it is often adapted to cut vastly different materials with the same quality and efficiency. Custom laser cutting utilizes light, precision, and high-powered cuts to shape the tightest, most complicated design specs for our clients. By using a highly powerful, focused laser beam to perform accurate etches and cuts, our engineers can cut into just about any flexible material you have.
Additional benefits of laser cutting include the following:
- Tight tolerances
- Intricate shapes and unique designs
- Small feature size
- Quick turnaround
- Versatility
- Cost-effectiveness
Custom Laser Jet Cutting from American Flexible Products
American Flexible Products is a nationwide converter of flexible materials—from foam to rubber to silicone and more. Every product is custom-cut and shaped to your design specs by our materials engineers. Curious whether laser cutting is best for your parts? Give us a call to talk with one of our engineers. We’ll help you decide which type of shaping is best for your project.
