For my lantern design, I was inspired by the lanterns in the movie Tangled which is my best friend’s favorite Disney movie. I decided to make this lantern for her and incorporate some images from the movie. I plan on making it out of plywood and maybe adding tissue paper behind the cuts. The other four sides that complete the octagonal prism would have more hair with flowers and more lanterns. I am concerned that the gaps I left between lines are too small and some pieces may fall out. Any tips for knowing how close you can make things without them merging?
From experience, it is usually best to make a small test piece with different lines getting closer and closer to each other to see which ones merge and which ones do not (does not have to be very big). When I was making my map, the roads (which were quite small) had issues but the highways did not.
thanks!
Very pretty design! Love your use of flowers in the hair; it’ll definitely add more interest when the lantern’s lit. Definitely make a few test cuts with different line separations to see how close you can get them. Also, you could do the lines as engraves most of the way through, which would eliminate the issue of them running into each other
good suggestion, thanks!
What is your plan for the double lines? I worry the laser would make those combine into thick lines, is that the plan? either way this is a cool design that should work well!
The plan is for the lines to be thicker so the light shines through
This is a very cool design with the image wrapping around the wood panels. Do you plan on incorporating finger joints or any other way of mounting the panels together?
I wanted cleaner lines so I wasnt going to but this comment made me realize that i cant just glue the ends together bc theyre not right angles. Thanks!
To test if the lines are too close together I recommend using a test piece of plywood to cut a series of parallel test lines at different distances from each other until you find the desired separation distance.
Thanks!
How do you plan to join the pieces together? To address your question, it’s probably worth doing a small test piece to see if it will be an issue or not. Hard to know is it will probably be a function of your laser settings.
I was gonna glue the ends together but now realize that I have to use the fingers. oops