Tag: Laser Cutter

Engraving the vector SCP warning label geometry into yellow-on-black Trolase reduces the handwork to wiping off the dust:

The alert reader will note two missing holes due to an unfortunate oversight while rearranging the layout. One can adroitly fix such errors if the cut shapes don’t move, which is how it worked out:

With the obverse done, another fixture aligns them for a branding pass on the reverse:

This is starting to make sense in a peculiar sort of way …

Scaling the vectorized SCP warning labels to fit 4 inch cork disks produces a stack of Danger Zone coasters:

I particularly like the Cognitohazard and Autonomous Object symbols. The Nonstandard Spacetime symbol comes in dead last; if you make one, use very little kerf offset.

Come to find out yellow is utterly unforgiving of smudges / smoke stains; orange is better, albeit non-canon. I cut them face-up through a layer of blue masking tape, which worked surprisingly well, except for a few areas where I didn’t apply enough paint: the chipboard fibers became one with the tape.

The cork disks arrive pre-cut with a PSA sheet, so using a jig for better alignment with the assembled chipboard layer would be a Good Idea™. These were assembled by feel, which is good for about half a millimeter.

A better process: cut an array of the shapes from a large yellow sheet, fit the black inlays from the back, stick the whole affair to a large cork sheet, then cut the circular outlines where small misalignments wouldn’t matter.

In production, it would make more sense to cut all the pieces from blank white chipboard, paint them in groups, then assemble everything.

Best: having me realize nobody else wants coasters.

A small coaster laser-cut from scraps of EVA craft foam:

It’s all of 60 mm OD, so not particularly practical, but it (and its predecessor, a complete botch) helped show the laser kerf in EVA foam is an astonishing 0.6 mm, when cut at 125 mm/s with maybe 30 W.

The white outer shape is the nominal size, so holes are 0.3 mm larger on all sides than the pattern. The tan inner shapes get a 0.6 mm outset (!) to make them larger, which definitely squared up the horn tips. The fit is snug, but another 0.1 mm might be even better.

The pieces stick to a 60 mm circle cut from cork with a PSA layer, which makes it entirely too bendy.

If you wanted to do this for real, all the patterns would require tweakage to make the smallest features about 2 mm. The huge kerf ate the 1 mm struts around the central white disk and the tan circles should clear the horn stems by 1 mm, so that’s just barely enough.