Making a laser cut rack

Making a laser cut rack

Online shopping is squarely to blame for this one

Making ‘flat-pack’ style items is one great application of laser cutting. So when one’s wife looks at fancy tea racks for storing the inordinate quantity of tea you have you know what’s coming next.

“You could make one of these”

And there it is. Who could dare refuse that subtlest of commands. So here we go. A sheet of 3mm MDF is all that’s needed plus the paint of your choice. It’s all in the measurements to make sure that everything lines up so that when it slots together that everything is tight. You can always use glue where needed, even MDF isn’t a perfectly consistent thickness, although it’s close.

Design time

Getting the design and alignment correct isn’t as fiddly as you might think. as long as you have a logical approach. It’s the deciding of how to break it down into flat shapes which takes a little longer. Once that’s done, it’s mostly a question of positioning slots and tabs and making sure you have your kerf set correctly. Kerf is essentially ‘the thickness of your blade’ when cutting things precisely. In this case it’s around 0.15mm, the diameter of the laser spot plus a small margin.

Tea racks assemble!

Once the design is sorted it’s a simple matter of lasercutting it from the MDF and slotting it all together. The gentle persuasion of a rubber mallet helps with any of the tighter slots. A couple of coats of paint and it’s good to go. The design had keyslots in it for mounting onto screw heads but these are actually held up with nano tape. Nano tape is brilliant stuff and grips most surfaces like a fiend while also being removable with no damage in most cases. It’s based on gecko feet, apparently.

Got an idea?

If you have an idea for items you want created then let’s get the ball rolling