The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Tag: Laser Cutter

  • Marquetry Test Piece

    Marquetry Test Piece

    Based on several examples from the LightBurn forum which I cannot find, this emerged:

    Marquetry test - finished
    Marquetry test – finished

    It’s ordinary laser-grade 3 mm plywood with another wood inlay, sanded flat and covered with polyurethane sealer.

    The key attraction: not fiddling with tiny veneer bits.

    Cut the recesses in one pass with enough energy to make them at least as deep as the veneer thickness:

    Marquetry test - plywood cutting
    Marquetry test – plywood cutting

    Press the veneer onto aluminum tape, taking care to avoid wrinkles and folds, and cut away everything that doesn’t go into those recesses:

    Marquetry test - veneer cutting
    Marquetry test – veneer cutting

    Which looks gnarly when you’re done:

    Marquetry test - veneer on tape
    Marquetry test – veneer on tape

    I cut the aluminum tape to fit within the corner targets around the plywood layout, thus simplifying making possible aligning the positive veneer shapes with the negative plywood shapes while being unable to see either of them.

    Slather wood glue over the plywood, make sure even the tiniest recesses are filled, align the aluminum, clamp the two firmly together, wait for a few days while the glue cures in that airless space, then peel off the aluminum:

    Marquetry test - peeled
    Marquetry test – peeled

    Which looked so awful I thought that was a disaster, not least because the veneer stood proud of the plywood, so it remained on the back of the bench for far too long.

    Eventually, having deployed the sander for another project, I sanded the veneer flush with the plywood to reveal the nearly perfect results in the lead picture. There’s a bit of smoke stain left in the grain, but the tiniest recesses have at least some veneer fill and the surface is entirely smooth.

    The overlaid circles worked out:

    Marquetry test - detail 1
    Marquetry test – detail 1

    The darkest block and the smaller lines are badly smoke-stained veneer, as they have wood grain visible under magnification. I think those may not have fully entered their recesses and we’re seeing a very thin veneer layer soaked with soot-filled wood glue.

    Another view:

    Marquetry test - detail 2
    Marquetry test – detail 2

    The checkerboard squares worked well;

    Marquetry test - squares 1
    Marquetry test – squares 1

    To my astonishment, even the 0.5 mm squares have some veneer inside, as do the 0.5×1.0 mm rectangles on the left:

    Marquetry test - squares 2
    Marquetry test – squares 2

    Not knowing any better, there’s no kerf offset on any of the figures and they’re separated by about the 0.2 mm width of the focused spot.

    Aligning the veneer to the recesses was tricky and I was not at all sure it had happened. I think larger shapes would be much easier and might give off a confirming squish as they meet their sockets.

    Gotta try that again without the benefit of beginner’s luck.

  • PolyDryer Box Desiccant Tray

    PolyDryer Box Desiccant Tray

    Having used desiccant in tea bags inside the PolyDryer boxes with some success, I wanted to see what happens with more exposed surface area:

    Polydryer Box desiccant tray - installed
    Polydryer Box desiccant tray – installed

    The tray (jawbreaker boxes.py URL) is 2 mm chipboard with a quartet of additional notches fitting the protrusions in the bottom of the Polydryer box:

    Polydryer Box desiccant tray - assembly
    Polydryer Box desiccant tray – assembly

    Although you’ll find plenty of printed trays, many with ingenious perforated lids, this was quick & easy:

    Polydryer Box desiccant tray - cutting
    Polydryer Box desiccant tray – cutting

    They’re painfully prone to dumping their contents, despite the dividers which are intended to dissuade the beads from taking collective action and surging over the slightly higher outer walls. Fortunately, the dump occurs inside a sealed box and is entirely survivable.

    Distributing 25 g of silica gel neatly fills the sections:

    Polydryer Box desiccant tray - top view
    Polydryer Box desiccant tray – top view

    Now it’s just a matter of time …

  • Humidifier Caster Feet

    Humidifier Caster Feet

    The ancient and much–repaired Sears humidifier works better in its new location across the living room with its front raised a few millimeters, which may have something to do with its plastic housing supporting a pair of heavy water containers for a few decades.

    After fiddling around with shims to find the proper height, these feet descended from the Husky workbench feet:

    Humidifier Caster Feet - installed
    Humidifier Caster Feet – installed

    They’re glued up from 3 mm plywood sitting on a 1 mm layer of cork:

    Humidifier Caster Feet - clamping
    Humidifier Caster Feet – clamping

    The humidifier seems much happier with its casters 4 mm above the floor. Seems awfully fussy to me, but there’s no arguing with success.

  • Garden Knife Sheath Redux

    Garden Knife Sheath Redux

    A knife found in Mary’s Bucket o’ Gardening Gear was in need of a sheath:

    Serrated Garden Knife
    Serrated Garden Knife

    Unlike the time before or the time before that, a few minutes with LightBurn laid out the overall pattern:

    Garden Knife Sheath - LightBurn layout
    Garden Knife Sheath – LightBurn layout

    The knife’s silhouette came from a few minutes with GIMP, because cleaning up the edges on a graphics tablet is easier than fiddling with precise spline curves. Export the selection as an SVG, import into LightBurn, set to Fill, and Fire The Laser:

    Garden knife sheath
    Garden knife sheath

    The upper block in the LightBurn layout is an oversized rectangle so I could cut that out first, stick craft adhesive on both sides, trim the edges, drop it back into the hole, then cut the middle part of the sheath.

    It’s made of recycled through-dyed chipboard and it won’t last forever, but that’s not a problem because these things tend to wander off before they disintegrate.

    I must do a few more for the other garden bucket, but those should be straightforward.

  • Monster Restocking

    Monster Restocking

    This being the season of monsters, I rebuilt and deployed a few from last year:

    Alligator - installed
    Alligator – installed

    Real spiders have better camouflage, but cardboard works pretty well:

    Spider 1 - camouflaged
    Spider 1 – camouflaged

    I must move them to the driveway on Friday:

    Spider 2 - camouflaged
    Spider 2 – camouflaged

    This one stands out in any situation:

    Green spider
    Green spider

    Tiny T-Rexes are just cute:

    Tiny T-Rex with pillar lamp
    Tiny T-Rex with pillar lamp

    They need support, because their heavy head bends the spine just above the hips, so they’re snuggled up against pillar lamps or each other:

    Mantis and Tiny T-Rexes
    Mantis and Tiny T-Rexes

    The cardboard Mantis turned out entirely too fragile:

    Mantis - dismantled
    Mantis – dismantled

    Reassembling the poor thing with a blob of hot-melt glue on each joint held it together.

    If I used something other than corrugated cardboard, they’d likely survive longer out there.

    A handful of RGBW tea lights provide just enough illumination to make them visible.

  • Mantis Durability

    Mantis Durability

    A Praying Mantis appeared on the house wall:

    Mantis - alert
    Mantis – alert

    The next morning found it huddled against the cold:

    Mantis - chilled
    Mantis – chilled

    It had reached operating temperature and gone about its business a few hours later.

    I deployed a cardboard Mantis in its honor as a seasonally appropriate yard decoration, but mine didn’t survive the night nearly as well as the real one:

    Mantis - dismantled
    Mantis – dismantled

    I doubt a predator was involved …

    A site search will reveal previous encounters with their kind.

  • Work Sharp Precision Adjust Sharpener: Button Improvement

    Work Sharp Precision Adjust Sharpener: Button Improvement

    A recent professional knife / lopper sharpening convinced me to up my sharpening game, so I figured a Work Sharp Elite sharpener would improve our backup blades:

    Work Sharp Knife Sharpener - overview
    Work Sharp Knife Sharpener – overview

    Protip: Wear gloves, because you’re working in front of an unprotected and eventually very sharp blade.

    The blade-holding clamp snaps magnetically into a rotating chuck so you can flip the knife over, at least if it’s not quite as long as that one. The chuck index has a spring-loaded release button:

    Work Sharp Knife Sharpener - rear view
    Work Sharp Knife Sharpener – rear view

    The spring is powerful and the button arrived with a recess around the screw holding the chuck together:

    Work Sharp Knife Sharpener clamp button - as received
    Work Sharp Knife Sharpener clamp button – as received

    Pressing the button hard enough to release the chuck hurt my index finger, but their Tech Support said it’s like that and that’s the way it is. Turning the screw adjusts the spring compression, but I think this situation calls for “more secure” rather than “easy to push”.

    Fortunately, I have a laser cutter and know how to use it:

    Work Sharp Knife Sharpener clamp button - filled
    Work Sharp Knife Sharpener clamp button – filled

    Despite appearances, it’s a 10 mm disk of 4.3 mm clear acrylic stuck to the screw head with a snippet of white double-sided tape and flush with the surrounding plastic surface.

    A smooth button makes my index finger much happier …