Wood Carving – Classification of Laser Carving
Introduction: With the development of science and technology, laser carving technology has been gradually applied to the carving of wood materials.
The basic principle of laser carving processing of wood materials is basically the same as that of laser cutting processing. Both of them use high energy density laser beams to convert into heat energy, which instantaneously causes wood thermal decomposition and carbonization, thus removing some materials. Laser cutting is to separate different parts of wood materials (mainly boards), while laser carving is to process the required patterns, patterns and characters on the surface of wood materials. For the same wood board, laser cutting requires more energy, while laser carving requires less energy because it does not need to cut through the workpiece. Laser engraving is a non-contact processing method. Compared with traditional machining methods, it has the advantages of no wood chip pollution, no tool wear, no tool replacement, no noise pollution (low noise), etc. The focusing lens of the laser cutting head focuses the laser to a small spot, which is generally 0.1~0.5mm in diameter. The focus of the laser beam is located near the surface to be processed to melt or vaporize the processed material. At the same time, the air flow coaxial with the beam is ejected from the cutting head, and the melted or vaporized material is blown out from the bottom of the incision.
According to the different processing methods of laser carving of wood materials, laser carving of wood materials can be divided into the following three categories:
Cutting carving is to process the required patterns on the surface of wood materials by cutting, that is, first decompose the patterns into several line forms, and then use laser to cut out these lines, and then obtain the patterns represented by cutting lines. The pattern part is cut off for concave engraving, while the peripheral part of the pattern is left unchanged. There are two cases here. The first case is that each point on the pattern is cut with the same force, and the carved pattern is mainly reflected by the contour; The second case is to cut more “dark” parts of the pattern and less or no “bright” parts of the pattern according to the different distribution of the brightness and contrast of the pattern. The former is suitable for carving characters, animals, plants and other patterns that mainly show their appearance, while the latter is more suitable for carving patterns with details such as facial expressions of people.
Punch carving is the opposite of die carving. This carving process only cuts off the material around the pattern, and the cutting force is the same at each point, while the material of the pattern itself is not cut off. This carving method is suitable for the expression of characters, graphic outlines, etc. In the last two carving methods, the material cutting method is that every time the laser head moves on the cutting surface, it cuts a linear groove, and then moves a small distance before cutting the next line. Generally, the distance between two grooves can be 0.05-0.5mm. In this way, multiple linear grooves are used to remove the area forming materials required by these two carving forms. Of course, in the second form of die engraving, the size of the groove, especially the depth of the groove, will change as needed on the same cutting line.
