So it turns out that there is actually a very big difference between cutting the various types of 1/8" hobby plywood! I had no idea. I bought my plywood from National Balsa . They offer three types of 1/8" hobby plywood: 1. Lite ply, which is very light but not too strong. Apparently it is made from poplar. Very flexible. I haven't tried to cut it, but would imagine that it cuts easily. 2. Regular, 3-ply plywood which is called birch, but seems to clearly be not as refined as 6-ply. Much stronger than Lite ply, but a bit heavier too. Cuts really well! Less reflective, fewer layers which means less resin to melt. 3. 6-ply birch plywood. This is actual birch. Very reflective, strong and solid. Tough to cut! 6 ply's mean lots of resin to melt. They also offer both 1/16" and 1/32" birch ply.   -------------------------------------------------------------- So, the other day when I was laser cutting my frames, I was able to easily cut through the ...

Tonight I got to try my hand at laser cutting! And, get this, it worked! So cool... I only ran the first of my 8 sheets, so that I could get a sense of how my drawings were working. Glad I did because I found a few tweaks to be made. Tonights run cut the servo tray, a couple frames, and the inner core of the fin. Here's a picture of the servo tray: As a comparison, here's how it looked in Sketchup Pro... I am now completely hooked on 3D modeling and on laser cutting!!! One of the tweaks that I'll correct is that the battery holder area is too small. I made it to hold the battery holder, but it turns out that the batteries stick out more than I thought, so I'll have to bring the port side wall out a bit. Might also have to increase the holder around the larger HS-815BB servo. Might be too short to hold the stress. We'll see... More tomorrow! Peace!