Laser Cut Living Hinge Binder

I made a wooden binder with a living hinge because I needed a binder and wanted to use my laser cutter. The binder was designed to be made in 3mm plywood on a laser with a 12 in. by 20 in. work area. Thank you for taking the time to look into this project.

You will need 2 pieces of 12 inch by 20 inch 3mm plywood, a old 1 inch binder and some 3mm bolts and nuts. You also need a laser cutter capable of cutting 3 mm plywood, wood glue, a hacksaw or rotary tool and a file or sandpaper.

The binder was designed in 2 parts because my laser is not big enough to fit it in one piece. The living hinge is made of a whole bunch of lines placed close together. The line length and the distance between the lines were picked because it worked for this radius of a bend in this plywood. The lines are about 0.7 inches long and the distance between lines is about 0.055 inches. The lines were duplicated using the rectangular pattern tool in Fusion 360 and the lines were trimmed to the border of the binder using the trim tool.

My laser does not support fusion's laser gcode so I have to export the project as a DXF. Even if you have the personal version of fusion that will not allow you to export as a DXF from the export menu you can still export by right clicking on the box on the left that has the name of your sketch.

I loaded the file into my laser software and set all shapes to higher power cut settings except for the text on the front which was set to a lower power for engraving. The parts do not take too long to cut out.

Glue the two parts together using any wood glue. Just make sure that the front and the back of the binder are the same length. I used paint cans as weights to hold the parts together while the glue dried.

I decided to use an old binder that I had but feel free to use any set of binder rings that you have access to. Just make sure that they are not bigger than 1 inch. you also will have to change the hole spacing and size in the cut files. I cut the binder apart and drilled out the original pins that held the binder together. I also made sure to not drill out the spacer that holds the mechanism the right distance from the cover. 

Find some bolts that fit through the mounting holes in your rings. Then install the bolts as shown in the pictures and cut to length using a hacksaw or rotary tool. you will also need to file the cut edges to make sure that you do not cut yourself on your new binder.

Take a minute to look at the binder that you just made!