I am not going to lie, I was kinda frustrated with my first round of cuts. To begin, there were not long enough laser sessions for me to fully test cut my piece, so I only got a few layers of the wood done, and no acrylic. But, I plan to go back to the prototyping lab on Sunday to hopefully finish my test cuts. The second frustrating thing was that when I made my small test square cut, the power and passes was enough to cut through, but when I scaled up to my 6″x7.5″ test cut, the power and passes wasn’t enough to cut through. Unfortunatley I didn’t realize until it was too late and I couldn’t re-cut. I tried upping the power and the passes a few times, and got closer to what I wanted, but wasn’t able to cut through. I did my test cuts on 1/8th inch plywood and my final piece will be on 1/4 inch plywood, so I will need to double & triple check each piece before I move on next time. However, I was still able to hack at my pieces with an x-acto knife and cut most of the middle pieces out to try and see how my final design will work, and so far I think it looks sick!
My question for you guys is a 2-parter. What do you think about the boarders of my piece? More specifically, should I make use of the empty space at the bottom of the piece (like adding the name of the lake or something)? Also what do you think about how close the top layer of the lake is to the edge of the wood? Should I give it more of a boarder so the little rivers coming off the lake are farther away from the edge of the wood?
I am here with an update! I have my final materials and am almost ready to make my final cut. Sadly, I have run into a problem and realized that my wood is about 1 mm thinner than my acrylic. This brings about some issues, because each piece of acrylic will not lay flat in the surrounding wood. I will need to find a material to put inbetween each layer of wood to make up for that mm of lost depth. I am also finding that my small pieces my need to be kerf adjusted to fit better in the wood cut-out holes. I think I will need one more round of test cuts with the kerf adjustments before I do my final cuts.
On the bright side, I love the blue color of the acrylic and can’t wait for this project to be finished! It has been super fun!
Hi Sydney,
In response to how close the lake is to the edge, I think adding more space between the lake and border would look better. Also I think the name of the lake would look good at the bottom.
Hi!
I agree with Sameer in that having more room beyond the edge of the lake (specifically the top right corner) would be beneficial. I think that adding a picture frame type boarder of perhaps another piece of wood would solve how the empty space looks at the bottom and will make the piece feel finished.
Similar to Sameer and Grace I think adding the name of the lake or other details about it would be a good way to fill the space. As for the placement of the lake’s closeness to the edge of the wood, I’m not sure. I think it might be interesting to see how the acrylic would look so close to the edge or being a part of the edge of the piece.
Hi Sydney! This look great! I think writing the name of the lake at the bottom would add a nice touch. I have a similar project and am labeling the area I printed too.
Hi Sydney! I think using the bottom space for the lake’s name or your connection to the place (like putting a date or something) would look really nice. For your other question, I don’t think you need to worry about how close the edges are! Maybe adding a frame would help?
I think making use of the empty space would be awesome. I dont have too strong of a standpoint on the layer close to the edge. I think it looks great as it is, however if you wanted the piece to look cleaner around the edge, sizing it down may be your best bet.
Hi Sydney! I’ll keep it short, this is so cool! Yes name at the bottom, the rivers at the edges are not a problem for me, I like how it makes the piece (map) feel infinite and not confined and artificial. Have a great day!
Hi Syndey! I think it would be really cool if you etched the name of the lake into the bottom part of the piece, it would be a simple but nice addition to the piece!