Window Screen

We have an interior window in our bedroom that gives onto the stairwell.  We put it there so that the light from the stairwell goes into our bedroom.   In order to have some privacy, we decided to frost it.   We did it with a "spray".  I always found that it did not do an even job.   It bothered me.  Laser-Cutting to the rescue!  I decided to add some decoration to it.  

The window is about 25" x 108".  I wanted a screen that looked like this:

I designed it in SketchUp, and divided it into 30 or so pieces to cut.   The screen is two 1/8" layers stacked on top of each other.   The divisions are made at different places in each layer, so that when they are glued to each other, they form one large screen.

Once cut and put in place, it looked like the following.   It looks especially good when there is light shining on the other side. 

3D Architectural Model

I really like this architectural art that I found on Pinterest.

I would love to do something similar, but using our house as a model.   So here goes nothing...


I started with a picture of our house.   It looks like this:

I imported it into a drawing application, and added some hand-drawn lines.  I then started with the bottom right basement.   I designed each room in sketchup individually.   Each room has 3 layers of 1/8 in mdf.

Here is the basement, I started with.

  I then did the right hand side of the house.

I continue like this, adding lines to my drawing, and then modeling it in Sketchup.

Here is the landscaping around the house.

Once, I modeled everything, I converted each layer to a flat image, and ended up with a whole bunch of cut files that looked like:

Once I cut it all, it looked like the following:

So I now have the base of the artwork.  I now want to cut little people and put them all over.   Stay tuned.

Turtle Gear and Hypno Gear

The next 2 gears I made are small ones.  Only 6 teeth each.

First, I have the "Hypno-gear".  Don't look at it too long, when it turns, it hypnotizes you!

The other one, is the "Turtle Gear".

Because of their size, I did not have to make these in multiple parts.   They actually fit in the 12x24 laser bed.  So these were a little faster to make.   Although the turtle one had a LOT of small parts.

Zodiac Gear

I designed and cut the next gear.   It is a 12 sided gear.    While I was designing it, I thought "What interesting slant can I do with the number '12'?"  My first idea was "there are 12 months", so I could do something with seasons.  

But then in a flash, it came to me...the Zodiac Signs!   So I made a Zodiac Gear.   Here it is:

You can see some of the details in the following pictures.   Each tooth of the gear represents a different Zodiac Sign.   You can symbols for each, as well as it's constellation.

In the center, there is a "sun".

I think this is my favorite gear up to now.

Magic The Gathering Card Box

My oldest son recently discovered "Magic The Gathering".   I really liked my D&D dice box, and thought perhaps I could make a card box for MGT decks, based on the D&D dice box.

Here is the outcome:

Once you open the box, there is room for a 60 card deck (with a few extra cards).  Unfortunately, the price label of the MDF was on the reverse side when I cut this, you can see it in the living hinge.  It's not too bad, since this is just a prototype, and I will eventually cut it with nicer wood.

You can remove the left hand side to easily slide the cards out of the box.

There is also a small hidden compartment at the bottom of the box.

If you open up that compartment, there is room for a 15-25 card "side deck".   MTG players can substitute cards from the side-deck into their main deck between rounds.

Rose Gear

I designed the 16 sided gear, I call it the "Rose Gear".

The gear was divided in 4 parts.   But since it has multiple layers, in all there were 42 pieces, what were all glued together.   The laser-cutter was acting a little "weird" when I cut it, so some of the cuts produced a lot of charring.   I may have to re-cut this gear.

Dice Box

I'm still working my wall of gears, but I decided to take a small break from that and design something else.   I have some friends from work who asked me to play D&D with them.  With that in mind, I decided to create a box to carry my lucky dice, and my character miniature.

I want a box with 2 compartments, one for the dice, and one for the miniature.   I also saw some boxes with "live hinges" that I really liked, so I'm going to experiment with those as well.

Here is the design from SketchUp.

I made a few modifications, and added a magnetic hinge to keep it closed.

Here are pictures of the actual box, cut in MDF.

Here it is a little bit open, so you can see some dice on the left, and a miniature on the right.

You can also see some small rare earth magnets that keep the lid closed.   There are also some in the hinge, so that when it rotates, it magnetically "clicks" closed, and stays that way.

I really like the design, but I wanted to do it in some wood that was a little nicer.   I tried with MDF, with a Birdseye maple veneer glued to the top.   It looks nice, but in the living edge, the pieces are too narrow, and the veneer just broken in some parts.

I'm going to have to find some 1/8 solid wood, and try it out with that.   More to come on that later.

Lightning Gear

I'm continuing to work on my "Wall of Gears"!   I've now designed the 8-sided gear.   I call it the lightning gear.

Like the 20 sided one I previously made, this one was also too big for the laser-cutter.   I split it up into 4 parts (it looks like 8 in the picture, but some of the cuts did not go all the way through the wood).

Wall of Gears

I'm inspired by this picture, which I found on Pinterest.

 

I want to have a wall of gears too!

Mine will be different though.   I don't want them to be symmetrical, and I want each gear to be very different from each other.

I want the gears to be pretty big.   The first one I designed is about 3 feet across.  Here is a picture of it:

Since the laser-cutter I use only has a 24x12 bed size, I needed to split the gear up into 10 different sections, plus a section in the middle into which all 10 outer sections fit.   I made 2 identical layers (each 1/4 in thick), and then staggered them, so the bottom layer supports the top layer when glued.

I also added some dark paper in each hexagon, to add some visual interest.

I'm happy with how this one turned out, so I'm off to design the next gear.

Round Mechanical Iris Box

I decided to make a round box.  It has 64 flat sides, which when put in a circle, gives it a fairly round look.  I also want to put an "Mechanical Iris" on the top, so you can open it in an interesting manner.

Here is the design from SketchUp.

The design has some green in it, because my initial thought was to put green paper behind those elements in the box.   I later decided against it.

Here are some pictures of the final box, cut in MDF.  Now that I know this prototype works, I can re-cut it in some nicer wood, like poplar, or Baltic birch.

I did end up using paper to decorate part of it, but it was in the iris parts, in red, and not on the main box.

The big challenge with this box was assembling it.   I actually ended up cutting a piece just to hold the 64 sides in place while I glued them.

Fortress of Redemption

This is going to be a long post.   I've been sitting on this one for a while.   I did not want to post anything, because this was a birthday present for my 11yr old son.   His birthday was yesterday, so I can now post something.

This project was replicating the Fortress of Redemption WarHammer scenery.   You can see the original here.

This was, by far, the most complex project I took on with the laser cutter.   Many parts are meeting at odd angles, and there are a lot of details.   It took me a LOT of time to model this one in Sketchup and Inkscape, and at least 7 hours at the laser cutter, cutting the different parts.

But I'm very satisfied with how it looks.  Here is the whole thing:

Here are the details:

I built it in a modular fashion, so that we can use the different parts separately.

Here is just the tower.

 Just the hex bases.

 The sides of the hex bases just come off.   I was thinking of putting magnets on them, but I have not done so yet.

Here is the center part.

The tower either fits on top of the center part, or a special base that I built just for the tower (that is not part of the whole structure above).

There are still a few things I'd like to do.  I have not yet done any weapons, like canons, that would fit on the circle in the hex bases.   I'd also like to make a "door" panel that fits on one of the hex bases' sides.