Today we're going to look at cutting things
out. I love scratch building as much as the next person, but I don't have a full modelling
workshop in my house, and cutting everything with a hobby knife or razor saw just takes
an age. There's times, especially with terrain that you want multiple copies of the same thing,
which can drive you crazy. Or you want to extend things and nowhere actually sells the thing
you want. That's how I ended up making these biodomes. No one makes them for purchase.
Even if you buy an MDF kit... sorry just a sec... Well, that was quicker than I thought! What was I saying? Oh yes, even if you buy an MDF
kit there's probably a load of things you want to add to it, and you have to make all those bits
yourself. Welcome back to The State of Play. I was recently contacted by a lovely gentleman from a
company called Two Trees and being honest I had to look them up, as I'd never heard of them before.
I got an email offering me a laser cutting and etching machine to use on my channel, based
around the terrain stuff I'd shown. And well, the skeptic in me immediately screamed... SCAM. The
reason being, I'd recently actually been looking at laser cutters anyway and had already given
up because all the good ones were super expensive coupled with being mildly confusing. Diode versus
CO2, different wattages, price difference versus what you get. That kind of stuff. For this to
come in at just the point I was looking felt incredibly suspicious. You know like when Amazon
follows you around the web with adverts for the same thing you just already bought. That kind of
feeling. I'm not that lucky to be offered exactly what I want for free, at exactly the right time.
I'm the kind of person who buys a Lottery scratch card, scratches off all the numbers and somehow
end up owing them money. Most of the time I turn down offers of sponsorship if they don't align
with my hobby life. I can't realistically review something for you guys if I don't need it, or
couldn't find a use for it myself. I don't play Raid Shadow Legends. I love free stuff as much
as the next person but if it doesn't do the thing I need it to do, or the thing I've hopefully
helped you to do - then what am I reviewing it for? Well, money, probably. And free stuff. Which brings
me back to this thing. The TTS 20 Pro. Who doesn't want a mini lightsaber on a movable arm that
cuts stuff for you. Even if the name, when you say it fast, sounds like a humanoid, robotic call
girl. I know nothing about lasers. Zero. Everything I do know I learned from Star Wars, and it turns
out that isn't even true. You can't actually shoot little laser bolts and swing a sword made of
Light. Which really ruined the future career prospects of a 10 year old me. I was really looking
forward to becoming a scruffy looking Nerf herder When I got this thing I did what most other
people would do. I went on YouTube and watched a load of videos about it. But I couldn't find any
videos that just showed me the things I wanted to do. Basically, make miniature terrain. Someone
just drawing a picture of terrain, loading that picture into cutting software, cutting it out
and then assembling it. The information was kind of all there, but spread across loads of different
videos. Unboxing in one, cutting in another, using the software in yet more and working with say,
Illustrator in another. All explained differently by so many different people. After all this
research, I wasn't really sure if I wanted a laser cutter. Even a free one. Because it looked like
there was an incredible amount to learn. And well do I really want to learn a whole load of new stuff?
It's not that old dogs can't learn new tricks. It's just they can't be bothered. Once I got this thing going
however, I didn't know where to stop. So I mailed Two Trees back and said, "you've seen my channel?
Are you okay for me to give my no-nonsense take on this and give me the time to figure it all
out", and they said, "yes". So here we are. But there are things I don't want in my house. Lasers, toxic
resin, burglars, highly poisonous spiders and any child with a large pot of glitter. So I usually
set these things up in my garage. The lasers and the resin obviously. The other three are just
outright banned! The first thing I noticed when researching laser cutters in general was that
you don't always get everything you need in the box. I mean these things aren't cheap to start
with but then it turns out, like buying a car, all the extras cost... well, extra. Things like this
honeycomb cutting plate that goes underneath as your cutting surface - that's often an extra. Because
why have the thing that stops a laser cutting through your table included in the base price.
Other things like an air assist, which I learned was to blow air while it's cutting to mitigate
burning and sometimes a red filtered cover for the blue laser so it doesn't burn your eyes out
while you're looking at it. Because sure let's not include the things that stop a potential disaster.
You don't really need brakes on your car, right? Those can be extras. Then there's my biggest gripe
with all of these things. They come disassembled and you have to put them together yourself. And
yes, I've put enough IKEA furniture together over the years to become somewhat of an expert. But a
Billy bookcase is not the same as assembling a highly precise machine, powering a super hot laser,
that moves back and forth on articulated motors. The TTS-20 Pro however, comes with everything in
the box and the best part is it's almost fully assembled. You just take it out of the box, attach a
few bits, turn a few screws, plug some simple cables together and it's ready to go. And the price is
cheaper than comparable sized and powered models as well. One thing that bugged me though, is the
price for UK plugs. It's almost 100 dollars more Why? The one I got sent, came with European plugs.
But with a cheap EU to UK adapter it works great. And adapters are much cheaper than spending
an extra 100 dollars for UK plugs. But is cheaper, extras included and all pre-assembled
actually any good? I have no basis for comparison so all I cared about was - can it do the things I
need it to do? The only reason I was even looking at these things in the first place was because I
was getting tired of making scratch built things with a hobby knife. Especially when making multiple
copies of the exact same shape. You know what it's like, it takes ages to cut by hand and each bit you
cut isn't always identical to the last. And they're certainly never perfect. Let's be honest for our
hobby we don't really care that much about the million different settings this thing can do. We
want a printer - that cuts. Draw something, cut it out, glue it, paint it. Drop it on a table and move tiny
little men with guns or swords, throw dice, measure distance and fantasise were in some far-flung,
future war-torn world. I'd looked at a Cricut machine which seems great for a 50 year old lady
making decoupage for her coffee morning friends but I'm a wargaming bloke. I want to cut wood.
Thick, chunky wood. Well, and cereal box cardboard I'm sure if I'd spent months learning about
wattages, cutting speeds, laser focusing and all the technology inside this thing. I'd have
been able to throw those at you. Maybe even sound convincing, like I knew what I was talking
about. But I didn't. Because none of those numbers mean anything to me. 5 watt, 10 watt, 20 watt. I assume that
means bigger numbers can cut bigger and thicker materials. If Anakin had a 20 watt lightsaber to Obi-Wan's 5
watt would we even have a Darth Vader? I'm not gonna lie I'm sure all these technical
numbers mean something to many people Like any good salesman, I should probably
be telling you that this is brand new for 2023, has a new generation 20 watt laser module, that's
40 lighter, and can engrave at 500 millimeters per second. Which is twice as fast as the previous
model. It has a large 418mm square working area and comes 98% pre-assembled out of the box. Air
assist and the honeycomb base plate, are included. And you'll usually get the cutting software free
when you buy it. I should be telling you all this. And I just did... tick. But I already have a hobby. I
paint models, make terrain and play games. So all I wanted was something that we cut stuff for me,
so I didn't have to do it by hand. And something that would come out of a box, sit on a table, plug
into a computer, fiddle with some software and then hit print. Or in this case... cut. Now with all of
these things you need some software to get them to work and I decided to go with Lightburn. For no
other reason than it had a cooler sounding name. I'm not going to go into the full detail of the
softwares that's a long video in itself. In fact, I had to watch a bunch of YouTube videos myself
to learn how to use it. Turns out YouTube's pretty good for learning things. Suffice to say, if you can
draw shapes on a computer and save as a myriad of file formats, there's a way to load it into Lightburn.
Two Trees were kind enough to send me a huge box of things to use for test cutting and etching.
But me being me, I took note of all the bits that would make great terrain and got on with what I
really wanted to make. Once I got all is set up, connected and working - which it did straight away,
this is where I hit my first road block. I had no idea how to get the laser to start cutting exactly
where I wanted. I mean, the cutting plate just lies randomly in the middle and the material you're
cutting lies randomly on top of that. So how on Earth does it know where your material is?! With a
printer I just put the paper in and hit print. On a 3D printer it rises majestically from the resin
vat but this...? Turns out shouting and swearing at it does nothing. Lasers don't understand an angry Geordie
any more than a clogged airbrush. Or Sky Broadband customer services for that matter. After two hours
of irate fiddling, it turns out you can just drag the laser to where you want it to start. Set that
point as the point of origin. And begin your cut from there. And to make it even simpler Lightburn
has a facility that will move the laser around, showing you where it will cut, without actually
cutting. So you can see if it goes out of bounds before wasting material or cutting something you
shouldn't be cutting. Which is super handy, because I sliced into my table twice - like a Asohka Tano
lightsabering her way into an ancient Temple - before I finally figured it out. Now I wasn't going to do a
review by cutting and etching random shapes. That's of no use to anyone. I wanted this for terrain
and to make some things I needed that weren't available in the UK. So I decided to recreate the
wall I cut by hand for my rivets video. Because say it with me, "you can never have enough walls".
Probably more complicated than I should have done for my first test but I work better when I throw
myself in with both hands and feet, without a life jacket. Complicate first. Simplify later. So I drew
all the bits of wall in Illustrator, including all the little tabs for quick assembly. Exported
as a DXF and imported it into Lightburn. It cut this thing so well, I found myself standing
over it, watching with my mouth open. That's when I realised I should probably close my mouth and
wear a mask. It does kick up a bit of smoke. With the laser and the smoke it looks a bit like an 80s
rock concert. With probably just as many chemicals floating around. Once the walls were done I was
so utterly impressed I had to make more things So I reopened Illustrator and drew some
terrain to use with soda cans, based on one I'd purchased and had delivered from Spain. A few
circles at the diameter of a can of Lucozade, some connector pieces and a platform on the
top. This was the point where I discovered that native Adobe AI files load directly into
Lightburn. And even better, if you colour code all your lines they're automatically recognized
as different layers. This makes it incredibly easy to set say, blue lines to cut and red lines to
etch. You can literally etch in the rivets and then cut around them. And this thing turned out
fantastic too. Perfect dimensions, perfect fit. Okay what are the complex things can we make?
Stairs?! Let's make some stairs! We can set it to etch all of the treads on each one of the stairs
and to test how fine this thing can cut, we can actually attempt to make some super thin
railings too. And let's build in the clip I made in my Necromunda stairs video, so it'll attach
from the get-go. Yes. It did all this too. Not one hiccup in the entire process. Well if you
discount slicing my table at the beginning. Considering before I opened the box on this
TTS-20 Pro, I didn't have one single clue how this thing operated and the closest I'd been to
a laser was trying to repair a Sony Discman 30 years ago. This thing just worked. I'm sure there's
cheaper models available from other manufacturers and I know there's more expensive ones out there
but for the price this one comes with absolutely everything you need in the box to make terrain
straight away. And because you're in full control of what you make, you can design better things
than you can buy. And even make stuff to add to existing kits. Learning to draw shapes and plan
the assembly I'll leave for maybe another video in the future, if you're interested. But all this
aside, did this thing do what I wanted it to do? In this case cut some terrain and etch some details
super fast, very accurately and let me assemble it quickly. And the answer is... yes. Within minutes
everything was cut out. I mean, oh my God! This would have taken me hours to do by hand and half
the pieces would have looked bad, my hand would ached from holding a hobby knife and I'd have been
in a proper Northern mood because it took so long. As much as I liked this thing, we really
should look at the things it doesn't have, and any issues I encountered whilst using it. For
miniature hobbyists like us, we're probably going to stand over the top of it and watch while it
cuts our terrain, and it does this pretty fast, so you're not likely to walk away and leave it.
I did once when I was etching the stairs, and I did wonder why it didn't have any fire detection
or an emergency stop button. Two Trees do have a model with these features, the TS2-20, so if that
was something you think is a deal breaker then there are other models available. That one has a
smaller cutting area but also has a z-axis for more precise laser focus. Now, I'm guessing this
is more geared towards doing seriously detailed etching work, which for wargaming terrain isn't
really a deal breaker. It's worth pointing out that this thing generates smoke. Especially when
cutting MDF, and quite a stream of it. This is why it's in my garage where I can open the doors for
ventilation. So you will really need to take this into account if you want one of these things. This
isn't something you can do on the kitchen table while your other half is making bolognese
sauce. Unless you want Spaghetti alla vapore velenoso. You'll need proper ventilation. I couldn't
solve this one with a damp sock sadly. But that's pretty much all the cons I found. I've
put a link in the description for you guys in case you're interested in picking one of these things
up. I don't get any kickbacks on this, but really I don't mind I have a free laser cutter now. So I'm
going to end my review like this. Probably a little bit different to others you've seen. A while ago
I'd already decided I wasn't going to buy a laser cutter. If I hadn't been sent a free one for review,
I probably still wouldn't have one today but.. and this is the weird part. If I hadn't been sent it,
I wouldn't have been able to play with it, so I'd never have known if I really wanted one. And now
that I have it, I really do want it. A lot of us are always stuck in that Catch-22 situation and
we don't get the opportunity to find a way out of it. I understand that. I was lucky to get this.
But it is still rather a large outlay of cash to justify and it only really comes into its own if
you're making lots of things that require complex cutting and etching. I did work out that I could
have made my entire Necromunda table for 33% less than I'd spent, even including the price of
the laser cutter so... there is that. Do you need it? No. Do you want it? Yes. Will it help you
make a lot of things quickly? Oh yes. Do you need to make a lot of things quickly? Well,
that's a question that only you can answer. And don't worry having this thing doesn't mean you're
now going to get hundreds of videos using laser cut pieces. That's unrealistic unless you all have one. Before I go I'd like to thank all my amazing new patrons for supporting the channel I was
seriously dumbstruck and humbled by how many of you actually decided to join. So, if you found this
or any of my other videos useful then please feel free to join up. I can't promise to be on hand at
all hours to answer questions because well, I have a life, but I'll do my best. And Robby, I hope
you've managed to strip the primer off those minis. Thanks for watching guys. That's The State
of Play for today. I'll catch you next time.
