After York, I have a need to Know

Hi, Greg You would proberty need a 3 Cad Drawing for the Building you would like.

Take a Picture of the Biulding you like. There look for a compny that can make 3- Cad Drawing off of that.  Then send it to a 3-Cad Printing Company.

Like a Company like, Sharpeway.com

The may cost a few Dollers because of time and material. there not cheap.

Good luck

Good Luck. John  

When shopping for lasers you will want to know maximum thickness for the material you want to cut. For buildings 1/8" MDF might be the minimum thickness. For bridges you might want to use thicker material. Cost is as much a function of laser power as it is table size, maybe more of a factor.

Pete

Greg,

As we talk at York, is not just the laser cut machine is the software, PC, exhaust systems.

at this point maybe will good to spend some money in a drawing SW and I can cut for you.

other wise check Epiloge laser cutter. there is a bunch of different styles, but customer service is the most important thing.

Andre.

Thanks again Andre, the I need to know bug bit me again and I had to have some answers.  I haven't forgotten our talk and I hope to have material for you sometime down the road.  - GREG

Any time! you know my email.

AG.

All good advice you have received as far as I know, but I have two things to add.

My experience with new "tools" particularly hi-tech ones is:

1) Rather than buy all you need (laser cutters, engraver router, etc.) , get a good quality version of the one device you think will be most flexible/most useable to you.  Play with and learn to use it, and at least initially, work around any limitations it has as best you can.  Only when you think you have mastered it - move on to perhaps getting the other.  I think engraver routers and laser cutters overlap  alot and I had the impression the laser cutter was the more flexible tool.  (But I have not researched it like you).

2) My impression about these machines, confirmed with similar experience buying a 3D printer, is that the tool is easy to use, but that the computer software needed to set up jigs, tell the tool what to make, etc., requires basically a course at the local community college to understand its basics - and a lot of practice.  

Greg, I have not been keeping up to date on these engraver/routers but do have a full size vertical mill and am familiar with CNC machining. The 3D routers would allow you work with thicker and harder materials vs a laser for the same money. Thickness would be limited by the size of the cutting tool. For harder materials you would just have make more passes. Something hopefully the software would do for you. 

Lasers would give finer detail though. If you saw Andre's work, a router would not be able to create the chips and uneven edges on the brick. Also if you cut out windows with the router it would have radiused inside corners due to the round cutting bit and the bit being wider would have a much thicker kerf so individual bricks could not be done at least in O scale.

While neither is exactly cheap they are an order of magnitude more affordable that what was available just 10 years ago. Neither will do everything well. Having both would be ideal.

Pete

Andre, what drawing software do you recommend? 

HI,

I recommend Corel draw, for me was easy to learn. Also upgrade your PC to at least 8GB ram.

Andre.

funny I read this today I was thinking of picking a engraver/ cutter up in the next few weeks. I don't have tones of money and it would be for myself to use. just like my vinyl cutter. it's fun to fire it up and cut whatever is needed. the one I have been looking at has a 11x19 table it's 50 watt co2. for a couple grand. but it kind of scares me with the hit or miss of the china cutter. from what i have read when they work they work good but require a lot of tinkering. lets say I want to make a false wall for a box car that looks like boxes stacked up with names on it engrave the lines and cut out to size should be a 5 minute job but tinkering makes it 3 hrs to me doesn't sound like fun.

software isn't an issue  I'm computer/network engineer heck I have an old server laying around with 16 gigs of ram and 5 terabits of space. and it's just sitting in the corner doing nothing it's a Dell PowerEdge   this is the one I have been looking at and researching

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-50...%26sd%3D221526805289