I have been researching a few designs to make a small box or a tray with my laser cutter, but the challenge was to not use any glue for the assembly.
Most of the tenon and mortice setup allow for 2 dimensions to be locked. It is possible to use 3 pieces of wood or acrylic and some of the parts used will be locked in 3 dimensions.
There is always a “final” part to be included which provides the final locking of the assembly.
I have been trying to use a “flex” method, which allows for a piece of the design to flex under stress so that it can pass a no return position, and therefore locking the whole assembly.
I have found so far, that the stress it creates on the parts can be too much for the material.
I need to do a bit more research to understand better what makes the part break and what allows for the slight bend.
I have made a few with wood and acrylic. The popular one so far is the acrylic one. Although the tray is solid and stays put all together, it has a few broken bits.
The design with the engraving takes about 8 minutes to cut on my laser. I cut at 15mm per second with 100% power on my 60 watts CO2 laser and engrave at 400mm with 30% power. It comes out nice without too much flameouts.
A design to be refined.
