Hello! I’d like to put in a request for a new material for the laser cutter - 100% silk, no dyes. As far as my research goes, it mostly gives off CO2 when burnt, and since we’ve lasered leather here before, I was wondering if this as well could be approved. Let me know!
We discussed this briefly on the LCC channel and I thought it’d be good to share my thoughts here (neither pro nor con, just brainstorming):
me:
practically speaking I can envision problems with keeping it flat but not stretched
as soon as anything is cut, the stress pattern will change
Probably need air assist off
other:
Is there a safety thing to deal with there?
me:
I imagine fires are more likely
I would probably try a sacrificial cardboard piece underneath, and a bunch of small weights placed close to the cuts
I’m assuming you wouldn’t want to stretch the material to keep it flat, as cuts would immediately open
(and thus locally change the geometry)
I look forward to hearing more about your project! 
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I was cutting silk into flowers for my Larp costume to decorate my crutches - there’s the chance of flowers falling into the environment with all the movement happening, and even with picking up after ourselves, there’s a chance some may get left behind. So I decided to cut them out of silk I had at home that my grandma had before she passed - she hadn’t used it for over 30 years - 1993!
I did a materials test, and saw what could be cut, even the highest speed at the lowest power cut through it, but in practice, I could bump the power to 50% and that worked just fine as well. No burning happened, I just used one of the grates to center things on, no air assist at all
Over 390 flowers cut out quite easily! It does stink a lot though since it is a natural material, smells like burning hair.
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Do the pieces still smell after you finish cutting? I did wool felt once, and it took weeks for the smell to fade 
I was wondering about this too.
Stuff that was cut previously (acrylic, wood glue, leather) is being embedded into the cloth material. The smell might not be as bad if a clean honeycomb grid was used.
I wouldn’t laser cut anything that was to be worn against the skin or possibly ingested, i.e., kids toys that could get chewed on, etc.
The pieces have a faint smell, but not too bad. I’ve put them in a ziplock bag together, and individually, unless you bring them to your nose, don’t have much of a smell.
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