Laser Cutter Project

February 12, 2018

Laser Cutter Project

Laser Cutter Project

Assignment: make a decorative box using Adobe Illustrator and the Laser Cutter.

Using Makercase, I generated a laser cutter case model and imported it into Adobe Illustrator. This is what my case model looks like:

I used a box with a width and depth of 3 and height of 3.5 because I wanted to make a candle holder, and I have both little candles and taller ones. I didn't want the taller candles to burn the top of the candle holder. I also used finger edge joints because I thought it would be easier to stick the edges together after cutting the shapes out.

After importing the case model into Illustrator, I figured out how I wanted to decorate my candle holder. I left the bottom piece as it is, and decorated the top with a circular opening and four triangles. Since I wanted the laser cutter to cut through these, I used a stroke of 0.001.

For the four sides of the candle holder, I drew some windows and placed two cats on the front piece and back piece. I changed the direction of one of the cats so that when I put the pieces together, the two cats can be consistent in facing the same direction (see photos of finished project below).

One challenge I had was how to let the laser cutter know that I want it to cut through the windows but not the cats. Luckily, Avery helped me out and what she did was to outline the shape of the cat and join that shape with the window behind it. Once that shape was formed, she pasted the original cat again into Illustrator so that the laser cutter knows that the cat needs to be engraved after cutting out its shape.

After checking all the procedures, Avery and I put in the material and started running the laser cutter. When I designed the project, I wanted to use dark wood as the main material. However, wood is more likely to catch on fire in laser cutters and is also not the best material for making a candle holder (candles might burn the wood).

After the 10-minute cutting was complete, I took out each piece and made sure that the windows, circle and the triangles were all cut through completely.