Tag: laser cut

Good luck charm

On By CarynIn Craft

It is traditional for Sweet Adelines to give small gifts of encouragement or luck in the time leading up to contest. Last year I crocheted worry worms, this year I made small four leaf clover charms from dyed green leather.

Photo description: suede side of a 1 inch charm cut from green leather, sitting on my hand

I designed the cut out in Adobe Illustrator. The grouping of four hearts represents the four voices of Barbershop Harmony. I originally wanted to do a fill engrave, then a cut out, but overall processing time would be 1.3 minutes each. I needed 60 charms. I redesigned the charm to be cuts only, using open slits to delineate the heart-shaped leaves, which dropped the processing time to 18 seconds each. The slits can also be used to hang the charm on a keyring or similar. I’m quite pleased with the number of pieces I was able to cut from a 12” square of leather.

Photo description: view through the yellow window of the WeCreat blue diode laser cutter to show the tight formation of clover shapes

I did lose three cuts on the left because the leather wasn’t completely flat, but all the other charms came out well. The laser does leave a charred edge, so I washed all the charms with water to remove the soot, then let them dry overnight.

I designed, printed, and cut flat cards and used glue dots to mount the leather charms to the cards.

Photo description: 60 Good Luck cards with leather charms that have my quartet logo “Precious Tones” with the words “A small good luck charm for a big moment. Go Shine!”

Kerfs

On By CarynIn Craft

Kerfs are slits cut into wood. The right application of kerfs allows the wood to bend. I’m beyond excited about the possibilities combining laser cut kerfs and thin plywood. I found a box calculator website where you plug in dimensions and it outputs SVG files. I entered a 3” diameter and 6” height and downloaded files that easily went into my laser cutter software. I cut the box from thin plywood and glued it together.

Photo description: open topped container with rounded corners laser cut from thin plywood

The dimensions I entered were not the finished dimensions. It was 6” tall, but had a diameter over 3.5”, which turned out to be an awkward size, too big for pens or a dice cup, but OK for paintbrushes. I finished the wood with Howard’s Feed-N-Wax. I’m not a fan of butt end joints, which is what the seam on this cup is, where the edges of the wood come together without interlocking, but this was a very informative first kerf project.

Photo description: plywood cup and a bottle of Howard’s Feed-N-Wax

Happy New Year!

On By CarynIn Craft, photography
Photo description: laser cut Happy New Year ornament made from birch plywood held up against the blue sky

I tried cutting this shape from purple heart, but it was too brittle and crumbled coming out of the machine. The plywood is a little better; it still has some flex but still breaks easily with the thinness of the design. As I experiment, I hope to learn solid design parameters as applied to laser cuts. Let the experiments continue!

I hope y’all have a year full of creativity and purpose! Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. I hope it brings some inspiration and amusement.