Author: guy

Custom boxes

One size does not fit all

There’s times when ‘standard’ sized card boxes just won’t do, we know all too well so we decided to make our own for some of our items! This of course means we can make yours, also!

If you need some custom-sized small boxes, and you don’t want to order 250 at a time from a large box maker then get in touch and let’s talk about what size, colour and finish you’d like!

Recycled string quartet

Gold from trash

Working on unusual laser cutting projects is a joy as you get to exercise mental muscles for their design which don’t often get used. We were excited when local Creative Artist, Jana Eastwood, asked if we could laser cut cardboard which, of course, we can. We weren’t quite expecting the quantity of cardboard to laser cut though. Jana had been asked by The National Trust’s Charlecote Park to create a string quartet by recycling material they had left over from activity within the house.

Designs

Thankfully information on the dimensions of the cello, viola and violin are readily available on the Internet from luthiers and other sources. Of course there are plenty of images to refer to also. We set about making the bodies first, creating four fronts and four backs – cello, 2 violas & violin. Not a standard configuration. The musical example picked was Franz Anton Hoffmeister’s Quartet #5 in Eb Major which was composed this way. Once cut, Jana could begin assembling the bodies using card tubing cut to length as internal supports between the two sides.

Stick your neck out

Next the necks were cut as a box, cutting the long side profile of the neck, including the scroll and pegbox holes, and a pair of connecting panels for the top and bottom. Jana added the clever step of some internal card bracing for the necks too.

Infinite scroll

We laser cut the scroll ends as varying size pieces to emulate the relief of a real scroll and to create a solid end for strength when glued. Sixteen tuning pegs were created by using a 3D engraving technique on 9mm MDF for realism (see Laser engraving 3D features). These couldn’t be created completely from cardboard and still look great.

A bridge too far

Bridges, tailpieces and chinrests were also cut from cardboard and painted black as were the fingerboards for each instrument.

Wait, there’s frogs?

The four bows were being made from 12mm dowel and we needed to cut frogs and tips that could be securely glued to it. This led us to create each tip and frog from eight layers of 1.5mm cardboard (conveniently a good size!). With 4 layers at slightly different heights when the layers are stacked together they follow the circular profile of the dowel. This technique was used for the bow tip, also.

The display

Once Jana had painted, assembled and strung her string quartet it was delivered to Charlecote for their annual Christmas Display. This year it’s themed around recycling and is open from today (November 30th). We think It looks fantastic, well done Jana, what a superb concept!

All of our time on this project was donated to Jana, the National Trust being a charity. If you have any projects you think we can help with then get in touch and let’s have a chat about it!

A big thank you to Jana for use of her photos!

If you have a showcase project you’d like to talk to us about then book a call or use our contact form and let’s get started!

Matte vs Gloss finish comparison

If you have any questions about slate finishes or anything else we may be able to help you with then don’t hesitate to get in touch and ask!

3D engraved texture

3D or not 3D

Not to be confused with 3D printing which is completely different, 3D engraving is a method of creating a texture in the surface you’re engraving by varying the laser power. Here’s how it works…

As the laser passes over the material it vapourises the surface of the material which is how the engraving is achieved. Now imagine the laser is not moving, at some point it will burn a hole through the material, assuming it is a material that can be cut. How long this takes depends on the amount of laser power being used, 100% power will obviously cut through far more quickly than 10% power.

Speed vs power

Now imagine it is moving quite quickly over the material, the laser spot will be spending much less time on any one part of the material and so instead of burning through the material it leaves a mark on the surface

It’s easy to see that the amount of effect the laser has on the material is a combination of speed and power so to achieve a 3D texture on a surface the easiest thing is to keep the speed constant and vary the power, so imagine as the laser is moving over the material, that we vary the power like this…

You would expect the material to be affected like this…

Now we understand how this works, imagine a greyscale picture of a texture where the darker shades are more power and the lighter shades less.

We can vary the laser from 0 to 100% power using the shades white through to black. Using a section of our Borg Cube project texture image you can immediately see how this then carves the texture into the material by varying the power!

To learn more about the techniques we use with lasers and different materials check out our other blog posts. If you’d like to discuss a project from business cards to assembled 3D models then get in touch!

Custom clocks

Tick-tock, not TikTok

Coming from a completely random moment on Twitter where #MHHSBD group had a theme of ‘Dreams’ for the day, this gorgeous dreamcatcher design emerged. The geometric design was put together in Illustrator and then exported to Lightburn for final layout.

Areas were added for the numbers and the digits added.

With an easy-to-read face and gold-coloured hands and feathers, this looks fabulous in any setting and at 240 x 350mm doesn’t need to take over your entire wall!

It has a reliable quartz mechanism powered by a single AA battery to keep perfect time.

Get in touch if there’s something you’d like to discuss creating!

Engraving scratch paper

Laser, not scratch!

Scratch paper is a popular medium for laser engraving but many people have a lot of trouble getting their settings down so here’s how I did it. The paper I used was ‘Rainbow Scratch Notes’ from Amazon.

The first task is to run a power test from 0 to 100% for which I have a handy test image I made. Most paper will cut at some power at around 6000mm/min speed so I picked 5000mm/min at 50% power as this is a bit more than just paper. Scratch paper has a sort of plasticised coating which you can see here looking a little frazzled and melted. Remember your percentages will vary, if you have a 40W laser then maybe start at 15% power, etc.

As you can see from the first test, the brightest results are down below 30% power so the second test is at the same speed but at around 30% of the 50% power, 17%.

As you can see this has shifted the brightest area to around 60% of the 17% power maximum so next I did a solid block at 12.5% fixed power. This came out nice and light but looked odd. Time to check with the microscope!

It’s not a fancy microscope, just a cheap 50-1000x USB unit but it gives you plenty of detail and this shows that the fill has really thin unengraved black lines between the rows and some fine debris from the coating, so a larger dot is needed. Reducing the line spacing made little difference so we have a different trick to use…

Defocusing the laser by moving it upwards by 7mm will increase the dot size which gives us this! A quick brush to remove the debris leaves it nice and clean.

And here’s the proof of the pudding! I hope you found this useful, always remember you have the option of defocusing as well as tuning speed and power!

Check out our other blog articles!