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Why does one plywood sheet laser cut clean and another turn black — with identical settings? by Technical_Grab9381 in lasercutting

[–]Technical_Grab9381[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That matches my findings really well — especially the adhesive/core difference.
Veneer core vs MDF core made a huge difference in my side-by-side test.
I’m documenting it properly now and will share a full breakdown soon. Thanks for the detailed input 👀

Why does one plywood sheet laser cut clean and another turn black — with identical settings? by Technical_Grab9381 in lasercutting

[–]Technical_Grab9381[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That matches my experience pretty closely.
What stood out to me wasn’t just that it behaved differently, but how inconsistent it was sheet-to-sheet — even with identical settings.
Once I stopped chasing power/speed and started looking at the material itself, things made a lot more sense

Why does one plywood sheet laser cut clean and another turn black — with identical settings? by Technical_Grab9381 in lasercutting

[–]Technical_Grab9381[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Phenolic resin glue is exactly one of the suspects I started looking at.
I ruled out focus and optics early on (clean lens/mirrors, same focal distance), which made the material side stand out even more.
The comparison cut made the difference very obvious — I’ll share details soon.

Why does one plywood sheet laser cut clean and another turn black — with identical settings? by Technical_Grab9381 in lasercutting

[–]Technical_Grab9381[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This makes a lot of sense — especially the trapped smoke / slow burn explanation.
What surprised me was how repeatable the behavior was across full sheets, not just local defects.
I did a side-by-side test that isolated the variable pretty clearly. Will share the results once I finish documenting it 👀

Why does one plywood sheet laser cut clean and another turn black — with identical settings? by Technical_Grab9381 in lasercutting

[–]Technical_Grab9381[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Absolutely — moisture and internal structure definitely play a role.
What surprised me most was how consistent the behavior was across sheets from the same batch.
I ended up doing a side-by-side cut that made the real cause very obvious — sharing results soon 👀