this is a shortcoming of laser cutters. On material under 6.5 mm thick, there isn&#x27;t enough thermal mass to soak up the heat you need to put a small hole all the way through. With birch, it catches on fire. With steel, it melts and looks bad.<p>The advantages are primarily no tooling, no jigs, no setup. No clamps, even, if you want to play fast and loose.<p>Where it loses to traditional methods is production - on quantity a handful, laser cutters are great. When you need Q144 or Q1000 you need to look at stamping or die cutting.