Step-by-step Archives

Posted on 19 July 202220 July 2022 by LaserSister — Leave a comment

Marquetry goldfish

As mentioned in this post, I have recently taken up marquetry and I’m really enjoying it. I am now always on the lookout for new projects. This week I’ve combined marquetry with another hobby (fishkeeping), and have cut out a goldfish design. Because I’m still at the learning phase I’m cutting everything by hand, but at some point I’ll probably start to combine hand-cutting with laser-cutting.

This is what I’ve managed so far:

Stages of making the marquetry goldfish

First I chose a piece of veneer. It’s impossible to tell from this photo, but the piece had been dyed to a light greeny-blue shade. Once I’d found the nice wood I traced a basic fish design onto it.

Using the ‘window method‘ of cutting, I started with the dorsal fin. I deliberately made bottom end of the cut longer than it needed to be, so that I could use the inserted fin as part of the window of a later section. So it didn’t matter that there was a gap at the bottom left of the fin.

Selecting a suitable piece of wood by viewing it through the window

Then basically I kept repeating the steps of:

cutting a window shape out of the greeny-blue veneer (e.g. fins, body, tail sections)
viewing the orange-coloured veneer through the window so I could find a woodgrain that looked as fishy as possible
using that window as a guide for cutting the right size of orange-colour veneer to insert into the window
glueing (?gluing? Both spellings look wrong) the freshly-cut orange veneer piece into the window.

Cut a window, find a suitable grain of wood, cut the shape, and glue it into the window

Wonderful woodgrain

This is one of the things I like most about marquetry; the way the woodgrain pattern makes each piece absolutely unique. Here the grain not only has lines in it but wavy lines, so the goldfish tail looks even more realistic. And of course, the lines in the greeny-blue wood look nice and watery.

More fins being added:

Pectoral fins cut and inserted:

Bottom section of fish tail has been cut and inserted. Again I was pleased to find some grain that had a bit of a wave to it.

I thought I’d gone horribly wrong here, because it looked like I’d added a clown’s nose to the fish:

…but when the body was cut and inserted, I was very relieved because the nostril thing didn’t stand out much after all. (Note: at this stage the inserted body-section replaced the bottom of the dorsal fin, so removed the previous gap.)

I was also quite chuffed with the way that the woodgrain looked a bit like fish scales:

Fin-ishing touches

Nearly finished, with the mouth and gill inserted, and a window cut out for the eye. The single mouth-and-gill shape was a really difficult shape to cut out. I could have made things easier by cutting it as two pieces instead of one, but fortunately nothing broke while I was doing it.

I forgot to take a picture of how I cut the eye, because it all got a bit tricky at this stage. Here is the finished marquetry goldfish:

The outer section of the eye is just under 5mm in diameter so was fiddly enough to cut by itself, but then I had to cut a 2-ish mm hole out of the middle of it so that I could insert the smaller, darker circle. No finesse at all was involved; I had to just hack away with my scalpel until I’d managed to carve out a hole from the wood.

Posted on 16 October 201917 July 2022 by LaserSister — Leave a comment

Money-Saving Lasercutting Tips #3: Use Sprues!

How to Use Sprues When Lasercutting with Paper

What is a “sprue”, and why should I use sprues with my lasercutting designs?

(This is another article in “Money-Saving Lasercutting Tips” – a free tutorial series that demonstrates effective and efficient lasercutting techniques. Tip #3 is all about those awful moments when you watch your precision-cut laser pieces drop down into the guts of the machine … and how to avoid those moments in future.)

Definition of a sprue

Sprues are most commonly seen in injection-moulded plastic toys. For a fuller description check out the Wikipedia definition, but briefly:

In the image below, there are little links that connect the plastic toy components to the frame. These are the sprues. They are created as part of the moulding process, but the useful secondary function of sprues is that they hold the components securely in position within the plastic frame, until you twist or cut the components out. So below, the pieces stay safely in place until the user needs them, rather than rattling around in a box or falling on the floor and getting lost.

Why do I need to use sprues when I’m cutting with a laser?

In laser cutting projects, you often need to cut light materials such as paper or card. But because the machines often blow and/or suck air during the cutting process, it’s very easy for a lovely piece of personalised wedding card to just fly away while you look on in horror.

It’s also really common to need to cut very small pieces from plastic or wood. But if they are smaller than the holes in the cutting bed of the laser machine, the pieces often fall through the holes as they have been cut. Then you either have to fish the pieces out of the cutting bed, or cut them again. This can potentially be a big waste of time and money.

Oh no! Where have three of my little circles gone?

This will happen to all lasercutter users at least once, but not everyone knows what to do to avoid it.

It might seem like it doesn’t matter very much because they are only tiny pieces and you can always cut more of them. But in the example image above I have lost 75% of my pieces. And what started out as a cutting job of only a few seconds, has now turned into either a search-and-rescue mission to retrieve the three little circles, or a waste of more time and material because I need to cut more pieces.

So we therefore need a way to cut the pieces that automatically stops them falling down or blowing away.

One solution is to use sprues, and to include them in the cutting design right from the start.

When to Use Sprues

Generally speaking, use sprues if the piece to be cut is less than 1cm squared, and anytime you are cutting a design from a piece of paper.

How to Design Sprues

You can create sprues very quickly and easily in most vector-based drawing software (e.g. Photoshop or CorelDraw). I happen to use CorelDraw, but the principles are the same for most other apps/programs.

For most lasercutting projects, a sprue is just going to be a small break in the cutting line. It should be:

Big enough that the cut piece remains connected to the paper/wood/plastic
Small enough that the cut piece can be pulled or pushed out of the sheet of paper/wood/plastic by hand

There are two main ways to create them. The first is to ‘manually’ make a tiny break in the cutting line, and the second is to use the Weld function to make the break.

Method 1: Make a ‘manual’ break in the cutting line

Step 1) Make sure that you can edit curves and manipulate/add nodes on the cutting path of the design. (In CorelDraw the “Shape Tool” lets you do this.)

Note: If you can’t see any nodes to edit, you may need to convert the shape to curves first (e.g. by right-clicking the mouse and selecting “Convert to Curves”):

2) Zoom in really close to the object (e.g. so that a 3mm line fills the whole screen), then add two new nodes as close to an existing node as you can manage:

3): Select the middle node of the group of three nodes, then break the path of the curve. (e.g. by right-clicking and choosing “Break Apart”):

Screenshot from CorelDraw: breaking a curve

4) That middle node should have broken in two, so take one of the two resulting nodes and drag it about half a millimetre outside the curve. Then do the same for the other new node. This creates a small break in the cutting line, so that when you cut the piece it should now remain fixed in place until you’re ready to push or tear it from the material you were cutting.

Screenshot from CorelDraw with broken curve zoomed in

Screenshot of object with sprue at the top

5) Use the laser cutter to cut out the shape.

The object can now be pushed or pulled out of the sheet of material that it was cut from.

(You may need a knife or scissors to help cut it free, and a file or blade to cut off any extra material left over.)

Extra material at the top of the flower can be cut off with scissors

Conclusion

Using sprues helps laser cutters to save time, money, and annoyance. Instead of wailing in anguish as you watch another tiny precision-cut object fly away or disappear down a hole, consider using this little ‘design hack’ to avoid those problems.

Basically, whenever you’re lasercutting and you think “tiny” or “paper”, you should also think, “use sprues!”

I hope you found this article useful.

Method 2 (using the ‘Weld’ function to create sprues) is coming up later, but in the meantime if you have any comments or questions, please feel free to share them in the comments section or via the contact form.

Posted on 17 February 201816 July 2022 by LaserSister — Leave a comment

How to Make Quick and Easy Personalised Christmas Tree Ornaments Using a Laser Cutter

(This post was originally on my KayVincent.com website, but now that I’ve got the LaserSister.com site I am moving or copying a lot of the laser-related articles over here. That way I should end up with a website full of posts relevant to laser-cutting, and can leave the other website/blog as a more general source of info.)

How to Make Quick and Easy Personalised Christmas Tree Ornaments Using a Laser Cutter

Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to make quick and easy personalised Christmas tree ornaments with a laser cutter. It shows how to create a really simple round bauble shape that you can then etch with a message or image. Alternatively, you could decorate it by hand (or give/sell it to someone else so that they can decorate it by hand). If you’ve got access to a laser cutter then this could be a great (fast!) boost to your Christmas income.

If you don’t have time (or can’t be bothered) to go through the steps learning how to create the shape yourself, just click on the button below and it will take you to a (free) pre-made version of the design so that you can immediately start using it and cutting your own personalised Christmas baubles with your laser cutter. The vector design is done for you, so all you have to do is put your own text on there and it should be ready to cut.

Quick – take me straight to the design!

The reason I’m using CorelDraw is because that is the recommended software for my particular laser machine, but most other vector-drawing software has similar commands and effects (although the tools and menus might be called something slightly different).

Step-by-Step: How to Make a Simple Christmas Bauble Shape With a Laser Cutter

1) Start a new blank document in CorelDraw.
Mine uses millimetres as the measuring unit. If you want to change that, just click anywhere in the blank document and the “Units” dropdown should appear along the top somewhere:

2) Use the Ellipse Tool to create a circle 80mm wide
(Tip: Hold down the Ctrl key at the same time as you are drawing, to make sure you end up with a circle instead of an oval)

If the circle didn’t come out at exactly 80mm, you can change it. Make sure that the ‘Lock Ratio’ button is selected, then type “80″ into the width for “x:”

3) Use the Rectangle tool to create a rectangle 15mm wide by 9mm tall

If you don’t get exactly that size it doesn’t matter, but if you want to use precisely those dimenstions then:

Use the Pick Tool to select the rectangle
Un-select the ‘Lock ratio’ button so that the x and y measurements can be changed separately to each other
Type in “15″ for the x measurement, and “9″ for the y measurement
(then it’s usually best to go back and re-select the ‘Lock ratio’ button)

4) Align the two objects on the same central line

Use the Pick tool to select the circle and rectangle. Then press “C” on the keyboard. This will make sure both objects are lined up vertically with each other.

(You can also go via the menu: Arrange> Align and Distribute> Align centers vertically)

5) Position the rectangle on the top of the circle

Use the Pick Tool to select just the rectangle.

Then either use the ‘down’ key on the keyboard to move the rectangle, or hold down the ‘Ctrl’ key and drag the rectangle downwards.

Aim to get the bottom corners of the rectangle just inside the circle:

6) Create a 5mm circle for the ‘hanging loop’

Use the Ellipse tool to create a circle with a 5mm diameter. (Remember to hold down Ctrl + C to make it a perfect circle instead of an oval.)

7) Create a 12.5mm circle as the outside part of the ‘hanging loop’

Use the Pick Tool to select the 5mm circle, then duplicate or copy it*.

Then change the second circle so that it is 12.5mm across:

*To make a copy of any shape, you can do this by selecting the shape then:

using the shortcut of Ctrl + D
… or by copying and pasting (Ctrl + C then Ctrl + V)
…or by using the Step and Repeat menu and clicking ‘Apply’. (If you can’t see the Step and Repeat menu go to Edit > Step and Repeat)

8) Link the two circles to convert them into just one object

Use the Pick Tool to select both circles. Then press Ctrl + L to link the two objects together to make them into one doughnut-shaped hanging loop (this is important for a Step 12 later, when the ring is ‘welded’ to the rectangle shape).

9) Align the hanging loop and rectangle

Use the Pick Tool and highlight the bauble and the rectangle at the same time (e.g. either draw a box around them both, or select one shape then hold down the Shift key while selecting the other shape.) Then press “C” on the keyboard to align them both on the same central line.

10) Reposition the hanging loop

Use the Pick Tool to select the hanging loop, then move it down (using the cursor key, or hold down “Ctrl” button at the same time as dragging the object down) until the bottom of the loop overlaps the top of the rectangle:

11) Use the Boundary tool to combine the rectangle and large circle

Use the Pick Tool (and hold down the “Shift” key) to select the rectangle and large circle at the same time.

…then use the Shaping Tool to create a boundary. This will now be the main bauble shape.

You can find this tool via Arrange > Shaping > Boundary (make sure that you un-select “Place Behind selected” and “Leave Original Object(s)”):

12) Weld the hanging loop and main bauble shape together

Use the Pick Tool to select the hanging loop, then click the “Weld to” button
(If you can’t see the Weld To button, you can find it in Arrange > Shaping > Weld.)

Then click on the outline of the main bauble shape, and the two shapes should then weld together.

You should now have a simple bauble shape, ready for cutting!

Now you can use the Text Tool to add a personal message for etching onto the ornament, which will make a really quick and easy gift for someone.

Speaking of Christmas – here is a gift for you! I’ve created a free downloadable file for you to use with your own laser cutter, if you like. Just click the button below and it will take you to the downloadable resource.

LaserSister – Simple Christmas Tree Ornament Download

I hope you found the above tutorial useful. Let me know if you’d like any more!

Click here to go to the free downloadable file

Posted on 14 November 201716 July 2022 by LaserSister — Leave a comment

A is for Alphabet: Laser Cut Initial Letter Door Plaque

This is a quick and easy way to make a personalised door plaque for children (or yourself!).

As mentioned previously in an earlier post, this is the start of an “A-Z” resource of laser-cutting business tips and information. We’re starting with ‘Alphabet’ because there are so many ways to personalise objects with a laser cutter, and this is a great way to start earning money with your laser machine.

If you’re interested in creating your own designs then Pinterest is great for picking up inspiration from the different types of door plaques …

… but in the meantime here is a quick project if you are looking for instant gratification 🙂

Basically,

1) Download the free .pdf file below, of “Alphabet Door Plaque”. (If necessary, copy or import the designs into your blank file ready for cutting.)

alphabet door plaque – LaserSister 20171113

screenshot of “alphabet door plaque” file

2) Create your required (capital) letter of the alphabet in whichever font you prefer. (The “K” in the sample file happens to be in a Jasmine font, but please do experiment with your own; maybe the child you have in mind deserves a more delicate, refined-looking font, or perhaps they are more of a straightforward sans-serif person?)

e.g. of selecting different letter and font

3) Make sure the letter you just created has got a “hairline” width of outline, and preferably no colour filling (this is a lesson I’ve learned from accidentally etching a lot of items instead of just cutting them…)

“S” with hairline outline and no colour fill.

4) Check that the initial letter will fit inside the frame of the plaque. (This is down to personal preference, really, but as a guide the inside of the frame on the .pdf design is 50mm wide, and the “K” example letter is 35mm wide so it fits nicely inside the frame.)

5) Decide how big you would like the whole plaque to be. The example in the .pdf sample file is 60mm across, but you might like a bigger or smaller version. (Remember to change the size of the backing piece as well as the frame piece, if you are making the design larger or smaller.)

6) Decide whether you would like to include a hole in the piece, for hanging it on the door. If so, then keep the red circles in the cutting design. Otherwise, remove the red circles before you cut the pieces out.

7) (Optional) Cut out the blue circle as a test piece, to make sure you have the correct settings for the laser.

8) Cut out the plaque pieces

9) Glue the frame and letter onto the backing.

10) Paint/spray/decorate/sell the plaque.

If you have found this useful (or if you’ve got any suggestions for making the resources better), or if you’ve created a door plaque yourself, please comment, tweet @LaserSister, or share your photos on instagram.

Posted on 8 November 201716 July 2022 by LaserSister — Leave a comment

The A-Z of Laser Cutting

I’ve had a VERY busy couple of months, since attending Autumn Fair! Here are some of the most recent items I’ve made:

But now November has sneaked up on us, and that means the Christmas rush is about to start…

I’ve got several orders that I need to work on this week, but in the meantime I need to also think about re-stocking my etsy, ebay and folksy shops. And ordering some new business cards. And re-stocking actual physical shops and galleries where I sell my work. And approaching other shops and galleries where I’d like to sell things. And taking photos of products. And updating my website.

In the meantime, it’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). The idea is to spend 30 days writing a 50,000 word novel. But rather than write a novel, I might use the time (and words) to update this blog, instead.

As well as NaNo, I’ve decided to participate in Jeff Goins’s “500 Words” challenge, where the idea is to write 500 words per day, no matter what. So with the combination of NaNo and “500 Words”, I’m looking forward to writing a lot more about lasercutting in future.

Over time I’m aiming to create a resource for myself and others, where I can collect as many laser-cutting-business-related links as possible.

Some of the posts will have an alphabetical theme, and will focus a lot on products that can be created with a laser cutter. And some posts will contain a mixture of tips on saving time, saving money, and getting the most (and best) out of a laser cutter.

It’s not just all about me, though! I would really appreciate your help in creating the ‘library’ of resources. So if you’ve found a great article or technique or business/time/design hack, then please share it by leaving a comment, or tweeting @LaserSister. I’ll also look into setting up various other wiki-type resources, that can be added to by the lasercutting community as we all learn from each other.

Along the way I’ll try to create tutorials or articles on how to make money via a laser-cutting business. If you’d like to receive the articles and tutorials via email to make sure that you don’t miss any of them, please subscribe or sign up for the newsletter. That way you’ll be the first to hear about any new tutorials, tips, or downloadable files etc.

In the meantime it’s time for me to go and work on some more designs for customers. This week I will mostly be working on family trees for people who have ordered them as Christmas presents. Next week – who knows? 🙂

Save

Posted on 25 July 201716 July 2022 by LaserSister — Leave a comment

Step-by-Step: How to Create Hand-Drawn Vectors for Lasercutting

The previous article described how to use ready-made stock vector images for lasercutting work, but sometimes (depending on how the artist created the original image) it can still take several hours of ‘tweaking’ to make them suitable for your own project.

What if you already know the sort of design you want, and could draw it quickly by hand but you’re stuck with using a mouse or trackpad that doesn’t quite do the job? This article will show a quick way to create hand-drawn vector images for your lasercutting projects, that you know will be exactly right for your work because you created them. Plus they’re original and you don’t need to pay anyone for the rights to use them!

You will need:

White paper
Thick black pen (e.g. a Sharpie, or I just get cheap markers from Wilko)
Drawing software (e.g. I use CorelDraw, or you could use Illustrator or others)

Step 1: Use the thick black pen to draw your designs.

Hand-drawn florals: thick black pen on white paper.

Step 2: Scan or photograph your hand-drawn image, and save it somewhere that you’ll be able to retrieve it from your drawing application.

Step 3: Open your drawing software and import the image (in CorelDraw use Ctrl + I, and in Illustrator I think it’s File > Place)

Photo of hand-drawn flowers has been imported into CorelDraw

Step 4: Now you basically need to get the software to turn your photo (millions of pixels) into vectors (hundreds of coordinates), so you’ll be able to create a design that your laser can cut. In CorelDraw you can do this by selecting the image and then go to Bitmaps > Quick Trace. (In Illustrator it’s called Live Trace.) The software then simplifies blocks of colour and turns them into separate objects:

The black parts of the image have automatically been changed into black objects with smoother outlines.

Step 5: (Optional) The software doesn’t always get the conversion exactly right, so you might end up with an object made up of a couple of layers of colour (in the case below, there is a solid black flower outline, with some grey petal shapes on top of it, instead of being made of thin black outlines). In CorelDraw it’s easy to ungroup the object (Ctrl + U), and then highlight the group of object (e.g. the flower in this case) and go into Arrange > Shaping > Back Minus Front.

Left-hand flower looks like one object, but it’s actually made up of a big black shape with six grey shapes on top of it.

Grey shapes have been removed, so the flower is now one object made of black lines.

Step 6: (Optional) If you want, you can copy shapes and/or move or re-size them until you have the design that you want.

Step 7: If you want to cut the shapes then make sure they have a thin or hairline-width outline, but if you just want to etch the shapes then they don’t need the thin outline:

Hand-drawn flower vectors with thin blue outlines

Step 8: (Optional) If you have combined several shapes in one design, you may need to ‘weld’ them together before you cut them. The laser cutter will cut anything that has a thin outline, and so in the example above, the three flowers would be cut out separately. To make sure the laser sees all of the flowers as one design and not as individual objects to cut out, you can use the ‘weld’ function (in CorelDraw it’s Arrange > Shaping > Weld.)

Hand-drawn flowers with one outline (compare the middle flower with the previous picture), ready for laser cutting

The design should now cut properly.