Card & Paper Laser Cutting from Cutting Technologies

There's really not a lot to say about paper - if you don't know what it is and what it's used for you're probably not actually reading this! Suffice to say there are thousands of weights, textures, finishes, coatings and colours, and laser cutting will process most if not all of them. Because of the diversity we normally ask our clients to supply their preferred choice, otherwise we'd soon fill our 16,000 square feet of space with paper stock!

Laser Cut Card & Paper
We process for promotional items, invitations, point-of-sale, business cards, models and just about anything where a thin flexible material is required. Please bear in mind paper and card are organic materials, and therefore there will be some browning or charring of the cut edge - the lighter the paper, the more pronounced the effect.

Examples
Technical
Quality

laser cut aluminium
Laser Cut Butterflies in black card, used to decorate champagne glasses. Darker coloured cards arew excellent as they don't show the inevitable browning of the cut edge. Just about anything that can be drawn can be cut in card - your options are endless!

Laser cut stencil
A close-up shot of the above. The amount of detail we can cut in card is very high, and the cutting is quick, meaning the price can be very attractive. We normally ask our customers to supply the card as there are so many different types, but we are able to source certain ranges.

Laser Cut Trifold Card A laser cut and creased red trifold card. As well as cutting, we can reduce the laser power to crease card - it might sound strange but it works really well! We do work like this for everything from product launches to wedding invitations.

laser cut anodised aluminium Another example of card cutting showing the really fine detail possible with lasers. It's worth bearing in mind that laser cutting is not economical if you want thousands of pieces - die-cutting will be less expensive, but for short runs there's no better method of cutting.

Laser cut paper An example of laser cut card showing the very fine detail achievable - this is about the size of a CD case. We're not sure whether something this fragile would last long, but what an impact it makes when someone first opens the envelope!

Maximum Component Size	Normally 900x600mm
Minimum Component Size	Very Small - really tiny!
Maximum Thickness	As thick as card gets.
Minimum Thickness	Probably not tissue paper, but not far off.
Minimum Detail	Really fine detail can be achieved - you really have to think about whether the material that's left will be strong enough after the cutting.
General Cutting Tolerance	Around +/-0.1mm
Effects of Thermal Cutting	As stated above the cut edge will carbonise a little, and there may be some residue on the back face. Certain coated materials may degrade a little
Common Grades Stocked	We don't tend to stock card / paper as everyone seems to want something different! We normally ask you to send us your choice for cutting.
Common Sheet Sizes	Try to get material that cuts into 900x600mm sections without waste.
Common Applications	Just about anything really, but mainly decorative products.

Paper Cut Quality

As discussed there will be some burning of the cut edge, and browning visible on the rear surface particularly with light coloured paper and card. We do our best to minimise this, but it is inevitable.
Let us know if you have a critical application in a particular material and we'll do a sample for approval prior to cutting the job.