Over the last few months, I’ve been making lots of gifts between birthdays and the holidays. For these gifts, I turned the the laser cutter to make some unique and goofy gifts.
Jewelry:
The jewelry I’ve made has become more an experiment in post processing then in design or fabrication. I’ve been using very basic shapes (mostly from the KG Flavor and Frames font series), or the traditional monogram style to create basic shapes in wood and acrylic. Then it was off to spray painting, washing, laquring, masking, etc. I’m still no where near finished with this. I’ve really enjoyed the experimental design with attention to detail nature of making jewelry.
Making Maps:
This project is certainly the most challenging I embarked on. I attempted to extract map data from OpenStreetMap to use as vector lines to create a thin street mesh that can be layered onto a contrasting based board. In the end, I feel defeated to the monster pile of vector data that my computer was not quiet able to handle. I simply raster engraved it. Hopefully I will lock this process down later and will have some details to share.
Medal Rack
My father spends more time running races then not, and he has amassed quite the collection of medals that ends up hanging off of post next to a vanity mirror in his bed room. Under the wise suggestion of my mother, I made him a rack for the medals to live on. The box is simple dovetail joint in 1/4″ red oak boards. 3 dowels are off set from one another on the top to create a cascade of medals on display. This project was a ton of fun, but I ended up completing it quite close to the buzzer and the rush left plenty to be desired. I would love to try to remake this again, but the joinery was so simple that I think I would use hand tools to do it in the future. (Feel free to download the Sketchup model. The joints are not designed with any kerf in mind, so it isn’t perfect.)
Various Boxes
I’ve learned recently that it is all about presentation. So I made some ornate little dove tail boxes on the laser cutter. These are generally generated with Makercase, and some edits are made to fit the various gifts. I’ve found these are no nearly as useful in the grand scheme of things. Some funk foam would go a long way to keep things from bouncing around in the box.
In Summary:
The laser cutter is such an amazing tool. With a bit of goofy design, and lots of experimentation, you can make some really inexpensive & unique gifts. I’d love to hear any feedback! I’ll be rolling out details on some of these projects in the future, so check back!