This week’s focus is the laser cutter– which I’m excited to try out. For this project, I thought to revisit my holocron” flashlight” from the first week. I think the design would be nicely done with the cutter.
So I downloaded the template for the 50W cutter, and the intent is to make the Mark II out of cardboard, and paint it. It may also have the clear windows since I have plenty of the clear plastic from week one, but I intent to make a field trip to Canal Plastics on Friday. If it’s reasonably priced, I may get a small piece of blue clear plastic to cover the windows for the more effective color.
So here is the template, the last two on the third row are slightly larger to accommodate the top/bottom, and their dimensions will be changed cone I get a chance to measure the thickness of the cardboard. But the beauty of this is I get to refine my design and if and when I revisit this and make the panels out of plastic instead, I have this template for the 50w cutter!
So after a few trials and errors I had to simplify the design. Cardboard is terrible at engraving, but I have it saved for when I try it with plastic. Below is the final revision set to cut. Even with this I have some issues I would readdress if I were to do it again (Mover the cuts a little more towards the center so the lines are not as thin).
After some schedule issues, life and few good old fashion flubs, I finally got it all cut like I wanted, eased out the pieces still attached with an Xacto knife and popped them out.
One base coat, one coat of ultramarine, and two coats of gold paint.
Plastic sheets cut on the paper cutter to fit in the windows.
Instead of glue I opted to coat all of the blue side with a cleat matte medium to adhere and keep the sheet plastic in place with a clear dry.
The next step is to glue the pieces together!
And the finished piece!
My takeaway for this: plan really if you’re working on the laser cutter. And the rule of thumb for materials gets super important when working with this. For me it was free cardboard, but the cardboard wasn’t very forgiving in ways of the design, but it’s a decent Mark II to get me comfortable with the laser cutter. Ideally I would work off a sheet of acrylic for this, take a day or so (maybe a weekend or a day that the other students may not have needed the machine so much) to engrave and cut if possible, and go on with that.