A versatile material, just as your laser cutter is a versatile tool for countless creative projects. It is not like fabric, plastics or wood however, so there is a couple of things to keep in mind when working with leather.
Leather scorches and bends if exposed to too much burning! On the picture above, you can see the first cutting attempt done with two passes using the same settings. With correct configuration, a single pass is enough to cleanly cut leather. As leather is a natural material that comes from animals (we will not include "vegan" leather in this particular article), the thickness, quality, fibre density will vary, and you have to account for that. Always do some tests at the edges to see what works and what would ruin your material!
Charring is normal; you are burning into what's essentially skin with fat, oils. To wipe off the soot, just plain wet cloth will suffice. Do not leave it wet for too long as that will warp the leather - however, if you want to emboss your material, or warp it on purpose, this technique is good to keep in mind.
Leather has different texture on each sides: the flesh side, and the skin side. The skin side is the "smooth" surface, the flesh side is the "furry" or "hairy" one. You can engrave on both sides, but depending on your project, it makes a huge difference which side you engrave into. The flesh side will always be less accurate in details than the skin side, since the fibres will shift around from touching. If you engrave deep enough, wetting the surface then using a press would compress the fibre and your design will be more visible and clearer.
To make evenly spaced stitches in LightBurn, you have to open the layer settings (double click on the layer you want the stitches to be on).
This layer needs to have an outline, and must be set to "Line" mode, not "Fill". As with the cutline, you can perform this with a single pass, adding a second pass is optional.
"Perforation Mode" lets you select the length of the stitches as well as the spacing between stitches. The output will show in the preview window, and not on the design itself!
Here are the finished labels after wiping off the soot. As with the edges, the stitches will also be charred: use a wet cloth or cotton buds to get out as much soot as possible. Sewing with light coloured threads may still become subjects to discolouration.
Keep in mind that leather will smell quite strong when it burns (imagine burnt hair, just much worse), and you should pay extra attention to the material while it is being processed by the laser. Since leather may bend or warp along the laser beam, if it gets in the path too often, there is a chance the piece may be ruined or catch on fire. Good ventillation is crucial, as well as making sure that all the smoke is cleared out of the machine before opening the lid. The smell can stay on clothes and hair for a while! It is adviced to wipe off your machine interior (rails, etc.) after processing leather, using dry cloth, rubbing alcohol or the combination of both is advised.
Show us your makes by tagging us (smoke_and_pictures) on Instagram and Twitter (@tweetsandmirrors) !
Happy making!
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Every picture in this article have been provided by Makerspace Arran.
Thank you!
This WW2 journal occasionally provided instructions on how to make silhouette card models for aircraft recognition training, which at the time (around 1943!) served as an educative piece but also a pleasant and fun way to learn something useful.
Today we have the comfort of having laser cutters available in community workshops, schools and even at home where such models can be cut using the machines instead of having to do it all by hand. We just have to prepare the files our lasers can work with!
Makerspace Arran (find them on Instagram and Facebook !) posted about their project into our Community Forum, and shared more details with us about their process.
"I simply scanned the journal pages as a jpg, imported them into Inkscape on the PC as that is what I normally use for my lasercut designs and then converted them into a vector drawing. The lines needed a little tidying and slot widths checked but it was pretty quick, maybe an hour of file preparation. The laser runs on Lightburn and design worked nicely first time."
"I don’t think the journal is available online anywhere - I saw a post of a model Focke Wulfe fw190 on a Facebook group for scale model builders but then bought a dozen of the original journals on eBay to look for more. About 1 in 6 that I’ve found have the model plans included but I haven’t seen them collated anywhere online (& I’ve really had a good go at looking)."
Although these specific journals can't be found digitised yet, that only gives an opportunity to go on a treasure hunt in your local or more remote secondhand shops, antique book shops, charity shops & similar places where any sort of old magazines could be found; not only of the same topic, but of other themes too. Perhaps there are copies already on your attic or inside the basement!
Once you are done preparing the models with your chosen material, why not give them some other props, a backdrop, or even a lick of paint? The examples below from Makerspace Arran are showing aircrafts that are not from the journal, but the hangars they are inside should serve as an inspiration!
Show us your makes by tagging us (smoke_and_pictures) on Instagram and Twitter (@tweetsandmirrors) !
Happy making!
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The Resize Slots tool searches for slots or tabs of a specific size, and let you choose a new size for them to be, taking a lot of the hard work out of it.
Keep in mind that this is a separate tool from the tabs/bridges tool, which can be used to leave a part connected to the material it is being cut from so it doesn't fall out immediately.
This tool currently works on two main forms of geometry:
Slots - like those found in 3D puzzles or partitions in trays, somewhat similar to a traditional halved joint or dado.
Tabs - like a tenon or the fingers in a box joint, usually found in boxes and drawers.
LightBurn made a video on this new feature, check it out to see it in action!
Show us your makes by tagging us (smoke_and_pictures) on Instagram and Twitter (@tweetsandmirrors) !
Happy making!
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Don't forget to mirror the text and any non-symmetrical designs!
It is up to your material what sort of cut settings to use, but the rule of thumb is that the stamp design must always be as high as your material integrity allows to prevent unwanted artefacts in the prints.
You can download the project files here!
The snowflakes and branches designs were downloaded from Freepik.com
Show us your makes by tagging us (smoke_and_pictures) on Instagram and Twitter (@tweetsandmirrors) !
Happy making!
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We prepared a little lasercut project for you to add to your Halloween decorations with some instructions. Be warned! The ghosts of these pumpkins may paint odd images on your walls...
The shadowcaster file is easy to customise inside LightBurn. You can unite and substract shapes, weld them together or prepare arrays using more shapes, and cut them out from the base. The possibilities are limitless. You can also use Cuttle.xyz to make interesting geometrical wonders and merge it with your design. We based our pumpkin drawings of a design we picked from Freepik.com.
A few things to keep in mind is the thickness of the material you are about to use, and the scale of your shadow caster. We made the circle in the middle to fit a standard IKEA tealight, which is about 38mm in diameter. To make a good nesting that prevents slipping of the tealight yet makes it easy to remove, we set the circle's diameter to be 40mm.
Account for kerf in your design! If your material is 4mm in thickness (do measure it beforehand, do not take for granted what the manufacturer wrote on its label, or on their webpage), set the slots a little tighter so friction will hold the shapes well in place, avoiding the use of glue.
The bottom tabs must be long enough to fit, but not too long, so it doesn't poke through the bottom. Then again, up to you: if you decide to make a tealight with feet, make sure the circle hole cut for the tealight is engraved deeply into the material instead of fully cut through.
The orange layer with dashed lines is a "Tool" layer. It means that no action will be taken by your laser cutter with it, but you can always copy the contents of this layer and set new parameters for it. If you leave "Frame" on the right side checked in (or left on green, not red in the switch), it will count those objects into the frame of your file on the material. Unless these objects are moved to a cut or engrave layer, it will not appear on your material.
You can download the project files here!
Show us your makes by tagging us (smoke_and_pictures) on Instagram and Twitter (@tweetsandmirrors) !
Happy making!
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This little cup is looking for a coaster!
To start the project, make sure your LightBurn Camera is up and running. If you are having trouble with your Camera, check out our related support page!
Capture an overlay of the laserbed using your LightBurn Camera. You can do this on the right side of the software, using "Camera Control" and then by selecting "Update Overlay".
Once this is done, pick a starting shape for your coaster. You can now see the measurements on the top left corner once there is a shape drawn around your cup or mug. Adjust these values to the desired size. You can make any shape more complex by welding other shapes together or by intersecting them: up to you! Be creative, or at the very least: have fun!
For our example project, we chose a simple circle outline. Then we added some fun graphics and text using some interesting fonts! You can easily add artwork by dropping some files into LightBurn, either already vectorised ones or raster format images: if the artwork allows, the latter should be traced for a more efficient engraving flow. We took some coffee cup and coffee bean files from Freepik.com for this project, and a fun font through Dafont.
Trace away!
When you are satisfied with your coaster design, set up your layers and check if the size you input is sufficient for your needs.
Let's get to laser cutting!
You can download the project files here!
Show us your makes by tagging us (smoke_and_pictures) on Instagram and Twitter (@tweetsandmirrors) !
Happy making!
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If you load a project from before this update where Fill + Line was used, you will see that it got renamed to “Multi” in Layer Mode.
To access Fill + Line settings, you have to double-click on the layer.
Notice that it has two "sublayers" now. Sublayers are modifiers inside a Layer, separating Line, Fill and Offset fill inside the same Layer.
If you would like to combine Fill with Line inside the same Layer, starting from update 1.2.00, you need to do this within the Layer settings. Find the “+” icon to add a new sub-layer. You can name it on the left in the blank field.
Find “Mode”, and choose the type of operation you want to add to your Layer.
Check out this video by The Louisiana Hobby Guy to see this new feature in action.
Show us your makes by tagging us (smoke_and_pictures) on Instagram and Twitter (@tweetsandmirrors) !
Happy making!
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In this article, we will talk about types of plywood quality grading, usage combined with a laser cutter, how to deal with leftover scraps, and a small project demonstration with Cuttle.xyz.
Generally, the material category of plywood is a manufactured wood made by glueing together several — but at least 3 — sheets of thin wood veneers using resin mixture, with the grains running alternately along the sheet and then across it. The top and bottom layers are always made out of more expensive timber compared to the inner layers, which serve as structural reinforcement. Plywood therefore means a type of processed material with multiple layers (ply) to build up its structure. A hardy, generally strong material, which when processed and prepared well for projects, can withstand weather conditions to a degree, and can last for several years to come indoors. Plywood is a durable building material for both exterior- and interior walls.
There is a similar sheetmaterial made of wood which is also often used in DIY and hobby projects: MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard). These sheets are made by breaking down hardwood or softwood residuals into fine particles, combining it with wax and a resin binder and applying high temperature and pressure. MDF is more tricky to laser cut due to all these adhesives. OBS (Oriented Strand Board) is also similar in principle, but also quite different. Here is an informative and comparison video between plywood and OBS by Belinda Carr.
One would think that sawing plywood is more finicky and time consuming than using a laser cutter for the job! Time consuming: that can be true. However, considering that the layers are pieced together by glue and resin, it consists of multiple layers and will generate smoke (which also contains that adhesive in the form of resin producing that grey smoke as it burns the edges!); the base wood type used to make sheets varies, the density of said wood and therefore its hardness will be different as well: there are a few things to keep in mind before jumping into using plywood for your laser cut projects.
Ensuring optimal parameters and establishing effective process control can help overcome these challenges and produce excellent results when laser cutting plywood!
Plywood can be made of several types of trees, each having different density and hardness. A system called the Janka Scale helps to give an idea on this subject, but in general the material is either made of hardwood or softwood. Softwood plywood base materials are for example: cedar, douglas fir, pine, redwood, spruce. Hardwood plywood can be alder, ash, bamboo, beech, birch, cherry, hickory, mahogany, maple, oak, poplar, teak, walnut, wenge, zebrawood, to name a few.
Aircraft plywood stands for the industry it was used in, and can be either softwood or hardwood. Think of those model aircrafts and toys made out of thin sheets of wood: those are made of balsa wood (though these sheets are normally single layer material). But during World War II, aircraft plywood was used for aircraft construction, and these were usually birch or African mahogany. Using balsa wood for models can open up the doorway to very fun projects to pick up if you have a laser cutter.
Other types of plywood are: exterior plywood, lumber core, marine plywood, overlaid plywood and structural plywood. But we will not get into those in our present article, as they are often too thick to be cut with a laser cutter efficiently! Some of those can be 5-7 ply or even 13 (often called multi-ply), which would take a lot of passes to cut through. Plywood is always made out of 3 layers unrelated to the overall thickness of a sheet, hence the odd numbering.
Grading of plywood is not the same across softwood and hardwood!
In the case of softwood plywood, each veneer contains two grades, one for the “face” veneer and the other for the “back” veneer. There are four grades of plywood veneer: A, B, C, and D.
A-grade plywood is the highest quality. While it will cost more, the time savings can be worth it for projects that will be visible to the eye. This type of plywood is smooth and easy to paint.
B-grade plywood usually has minor flaws that may require small repairs. It is slightly less smooth.
C-grade plywood has more visible flaws and knots up to 1.5 inches (38.1mm) in diameter.
D-grade plywood can have large flaws and knots up to 2.5 inches (63.5mm) in diameter. This is typically the cheapest grade of plywood veneer.
The first letter refers to the grade of the face of the plywood, and the second letter refers to the back. Therefore, “AB” plywood would have an A-grade face veneer and a B-grade back sheet.
The grading system for hardwood plywood is a little different. Like softwood, the face veneer is represented by letters, and A is the highest quality and D is the lowest quality. However, there is a different standard for backs: 1 is the best and 4 is the worst. A1 hardwood plywood represents the top quality plywood, and D4 the lowest quality (but most cost-effective) plywood.
At base, plywood is rather structurally stable compared to solidwood, but it may crumble and split along the layers.
Knots and cosmetic flaws are not the only quality marks one should be aware of. Plywood may have holes/gaps inside, between the layers, which is not a problem when you are using it as building material. However, these can be critical for your laser cut projects: if you happen to cut over an area with such an inner flaw, you might end up having to redo your piece again. A trick to see if your sheet has a gap inside is to hold the plywood towards the sun, which will make you see through thinned areas, just like your skin when you shine strong light through it. Using a torchlight on your phone works similarly! Some hardware stores will fill external surfaces with visually not appealing gaps with a mix of plaster and resin, tinted to have a similar colour as the wood itself. This is not visible in a rush, so take your time to look through all the sheets available and pick the one which suits your project best.
Another annoying thing can be bent or curved plywood. In reality, every sheet of plywood you ever come across, will have at least a little warp in it. If you are working with sheets as small as an A4, the method to flatten them is straightforward: steam the sheet over a boiling pot of water on the side which is bent to a concave curve, after about 10 minutes, remove it and place it under heavy objects to keep it flat while it dries. To keep your object (such as books) away from moisture damage, you can wrap the plywood in fabric or alufoil. The general rule is that you give 20 minutes of steaming to every 25mm thickness of wood you are using, but this also depends on the density of the plywood (poplar will take less time than birch for example). If you have to deal with bigger pieces of material, water is still the way: spray the surface drenched and smooth it out with a sponge, tapping it, then clamp every side and corner to a table or countertop, and place something very heavy on it. Cover the surface with something to prevent moisture damage to the weight. You can read more on flattening plywood here.
We generated some labels using Cuttle.xyz to show the difference between three types of wood commonly used for laser cutting. Plywood which is safe and easy to use with a laser cutter is called laserply (which is one of the names you will find it online when looking for material).
Since the density of each wood is different (birch being the most dense, poplar second and balsa being air-light in every sense), but the thickness of the materials were almost the same, only adjustments in passes and power were needed.
While 4mm poplar is cut clean with 2 passes with clean edge on 30mm/s speed and 100% power, birch is cut the cleanest with at least 3 (but ideally 4) passes on the same speed and power. Balsa wood, however, due to it being so airy and thin in density, will be cut through with a single pass using the same settings as above for speed and power. The engraving using the same settings on balsa wood would be too much, so we ended up adjusting it to 20% power instead of 30% only on that piece. Mind that these settings are used with a freshly maintained machine and focused mirrors and lens! Always keep your machines regularly maintained for consistently good performance.
When cutting balsa wood, you will notice that it makes less coloured smoke than poplar or birch. This is because of the glue between layers - balsa wood does not have layers, therefore the only components of the smoke are straight from the wood, and nothing else.
Kitronik offers a comprehensive guide on laser cutting plywood well according to their given parameters, which you can find here. Make sure to check out their videos on Youtube featuring Poplar laserply, as well as Ceiba laserply sheets!
No matter how carefully you nest your items on the material, there will be leftover material. Oftentimes these leftovers can have a second life with just a bit of brainstorming!
You can make art, small things or tiny keychains, dollhouse furniture, toy targets for Nerf guns or similar, or reuse them and make pins to hold your material flat on all sides without the use of masking tape, and so much more! Get creative! If you need more inspiration, check out this video as well from Maker Tales. Cuttle.xyz is perfect for generating small and quick geometric designs or small keychains using parameters - we wrote an article about this software in the past, make sure to check it out!
You can use scraps for gardening as well: label up your seedlings and plants you keep forgetting how to call. Scraps are useful for spacers when it’s not important how such detail looks inside a closed object. If you are still left with any leftovers that you cannot use at all, remember this pile next time you are preparing for outdoors open fire cooking!
Show us your makes by tagging us (smoke_and_pictures) on Instagram and Twitter (@tweetsandmirrors) !
Happy making!
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It seems that the missing link for connecting simple tools meant for beginners or non-professionals with an effective software, is currently in development!
There is a neat tool out there now which could be the next addition to your digital workshop: Cuttle.xyz. After playing with the software for a couple of hours, we soon got in touch with Toby Schachman, the founder of Cuttle, and had an exciting chat about the team's future plans for development and directions.
Cuttle is meant to be an easy-to-use vector editor that also offers powerful CAD capabilities that you can grow into. Right at the start once we enter the editor user interface, Cuttle will offer an interactive tutorial which is broken into bite-sized portions to follow along. After going through the very short introduction to the basics, we are on our way to create simple drawings, edit something that we took from the Cuttle community's published content, or prepare something more complex using parametric design. Still have a question? The tutorials are available anytime. Cuttle also has a YouTube channel which they keep updating with new content.
This is a key feature in Cuttle. You can define parameters — like your material thickness, dimensions of your finished piece, or custom text — and then use these parameters within your design. When you change a parameter, your design automatically changes. We are going to cover a few awesome examples in this article!
Parametric design is based on lines of code and scripts which can be either edited in the graphical user interface, or tweaked further within the scripts if one has the knowledge for that.
We placed three circles and a star (you can simply drag and drop geometric elements from the left sidebar), and later some more elements as we saw it would make the outcome more exciting. By using "Rotational repeat" and doing small edits to the shapes, then applying a Modifier called "Outline stroke", we get a result that looks cool and very interesting:
Since all of these are vectors, making changes and undoing actions is very simple and safe. The creative freedom here is immense!
Cuttle provides freedom to make our own generators based on parametrics. There are future plans to introduce creative users into the world of programming by making them follow a few simple tutorials on how they could produce their own ideas into scripts. We thought this would be groundbreaking, as "learning coding for the sake of making a design" might sound very daunting at start, and can easily discourage makers to dive into a deep rabbithole they don't know much about yet. But if they are faced with a fun, guided challenge with a reward at the end they can immediately use afterwards, it may change the perspectives on this industry for many.
This is a keychain generator designed in Cuttle. We simply loaded the file into LightBurn, from where it was a button-click away from seeing our machine engrave and cut this design into our material. Right now, Cuttle can only import .SVG files, and output into .SVG, .PDF, .PNG and .SVG for Cricut machines (this is a separate option because it performs some actions prior to saving, making it readable by Cricut devices without issues).
You can customize the text, font, sizing, and hole placement, and the design automatically changes. Then you can export an SVG. Ready to cut!
Files generated through Cuttle are seamless with LightBurn workflow. In fact: you can simply copy and paste the designs from Cuttle into LightBurn with your keyboard or mouse!
Some users with joinery-oriented projects have prepared a generator which lets you create cute hinge boxes. Same as with the keychain: you can change the parameters of width, depth, length, material thickness, finger joint sizes, and so many more. It is worth diving into and giving it a go!
If you would like to finish this hinge box with an insert, there is a matching generator to prepare that too! You can set the size of the slot, the shape of the insert and its depths. There are so many settings to customise!
Cuttle is in open beta phase right now — free to use whilst in development, constantly being improved with the help of the community and valuable feedback from creative users. The team is very open to new ideas and suggestions.
Once out of open beta phase, Cuttle plans to introduce monthly subscription fees for users at an affordable price for hobbyists.
We will keep a close eye out on Cuttle and definitely return with more articles featuring their software in the future!
Have you tried out any of the generators, prepared geometric designs or made your own scripts yet?
Show us your makes by tagging us (smoke_and_pictures) on Instagram and Twitter (@tweetsandmirrors) !
Happy making!
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Being a versatile creative myself, I love to use LightBurn because it integrates seamlessly with my general workflow of preparing props for art pieces, prototypes, models or even accessories to go well with different material media (such as polymer clay figures with accessories made with thin sheets of wood to serve as a base for sculpting an element). My step-by-step processes are really fast-paced when am working on projects, therefore I expect the hardware and the software to pick up the same speed. Starting off from vector files? LightBurn can process even the proprietary .AI fileformat without a problem aside more open-source formats, handles files generated by Inkscape seamlessly and other more complex CAD formats such as .DXF. Straight-up wanting to engrave an image or a photo into the workpiece? The software offers a wide range of image processing features (such as detailed halftone, newsprint and many more texture) which look beautiful once engraved. The software offers an extensive list of functions and commands that allow designing within LightBurn a breeze, creating arrays, text editing, serial numbering, clean (and colour-coded!) layer organisation, and so much more. Check out this video from LaserLivestream if you would like to see more of these in action!
I asked Dominic Morrow, the lead person of Smoke & Mirrors what he thinks about LightBurn software compared to other software he got experience with from the past. Aside mending creatives' CO2 machines in the United Kingdom, he is well-versed in to setting up software and firmware that go with these machines from the ground-up as well!
I’ve used a lot of different software, mostly LaserCut, NewlyDraw and RDWorks. More recently I’ve used free programs like LaserGRBL for diode engravers and a couple of others that aren’t worth mentioning.
The main advantages of these software was that they came free with or were the only workable software for the laser cutters I was using, servicing and selling. To be fair to NewlyDraw it had some (possibly accidentally) superior grayscale engraving capabilities. LaserCut is so simple it presented a suitable easy-to-use interface that worked, mostly.
Some of the older softwares like NewlyDraw and LaserCut need a USB dongle to be present for encryption, it's how the writers of the software were protecting their intellectual property. This made it so only their software can work with that laser cutters hardware. Newer hardware and software from Leetro, the makers of LaserCut didn’t really seem to work at all and all these older systems struggle with newer versions of Windows.
RDWorks on the other hand was made for the Ruida controllers but doesn’t require a dongle but I find the interface very ugly and fussy.
I’ve been onboard with LightBurn since about late 2017. I met Oz and Ray at Maker Faire a few times and liked very much what they were doing. I was able to configure machines using LightBurn very quickly using the “find my laser” function, and found this especially useful for messing around with Arduino based controllers for smaller diode lasers and then later used it on machines with both Ruida and Trocen Anywells controllers. I’m now 100% LightBurn.
It wasn’t a hard decision to make. As soon as I downloaded the free trial I knew it was something the laser industry had been waiting for. Connecting it so quickly to a Ruida based laser cutter was great, and its clean intuitive modern interface is awesome. Furthermore, the development team for LightBurn are real, accessible people who are makers too. LightBurn is now the industry standard for CO2 laser cutters of the sort I work with. One by one I’ve watched competitors switch to LightBurn, though I’ve also had conversations with them where they swore that it wasn’t for them.
I’ve been working with CO2 lasers for about 10 years now, and I’ve customers in every imaginable type of creative industry. LightBurn is feature packed, from the superb node and array tools, to QR code making and working with CSV data. What is more, you can request features (Vote for or suggest feature additions helping us prioritize our development efforts: https://lightburn.fider.io/ ) and the LightBurn development team will consider adding them in. They’ve been working on integrations with nesting tools as well as trying to develop the software to work with fiber lasers and knife plotters like the Silhouette Studio and CriCut.
The camera tools have a nice “Wow” factor to them that I very much enjoy showing off to customers for the first time. If you are a very visual person, and lots of creative people are, the ability to place drawings on the virtual workbed in LightBurn and have that drawing positioned right on the material, can be a game changer. Add in the tracing tools and the LightBurn camera gives you a whole new tool kit, opening up possibilities for makers to do new things with waste materials and limited space.
If you have a laser cutter and need some help to identify if your existing controller works with LightBurn, you can use this handy controller spotting guide:
https://lasergods.com/controller-dsp-identification/
We specialise in overhauling and upgrading CO2 equipment to work with LightBurn and would be happy to give a quotation for fitting a suitable controller or camera system to your existing CO2 laser cutter.
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There are a couple of things to check before heading in to try out this feature. One of the most important things is that you have set up your LightBurn Camera inside an enclosure to the right height in comparison to your laser cutter's structure. For advice on the topic, see our help page right here.
To begin using this feature, first print your stickers or labels on an adhesive sheet. After that, place it on the honeycomb bed of your laser cutter. You don't have to be exact with aligning the sheet in the center, or aligning it to any corners. We will explain shortly why!
An important element that you must have on your sticker sheet is two crossmarks on extreme ends of the sheet, so make sure these are on the printed out version of your workpiece before heading into using the feature. These will make sure that the Camera will perform aligning well in the later steps.
After positioning your sticker sheet, let's head back to LightBurn Software.
Import the digital version of your stickers, and make sure that the LightBurn Camera is turned on and is recording in your machine.
Before you start the Print & Cut Wizard, trace the image with the shown option.
Adjust the settings until you are happy with the preview result. You will not have to use the traced images for your Print & Cut experiment, however they are needed to make an offset outline. Later, this is what your laser cutter will go through to cut out your designs.
Find the "Offset Shapes" option.
This setting will help you generate your desired sticker outline.
What we did here was to duplicate the outer edge of the design, and then adjust that with the new settings we made up. Place this new outline onto a new layer by clicking on a new colour in the palette on the bottom of the software.
Now, to the tricky Print & Cut Wizard. Find the first crossmark. But before you do anything to it, make LightBurn produce an image of the laser bed with your workpiece on it.
Click on "Update Overlay" to get an image.
Find "Print and Cut", and then "Start Wizard".
You have to pay attention here a little! To set up the crossmarks on your design, you have to physically make the laser jog to the position of where the crossmark center is at on the sheet you printed. If you try to register the second crossmark after the first, but you did not yet jog the laser to the second target on your sheet, the software will return a distance error.
Try to aim for absolute center!
After both targets are set up, the software will ask you to adjust scale or to keep as is. You can try out what works for you best at the current experiment. Keep in mind that depending on the overlay image, you might have to move your outlines to match the image your LightBurn Camera took. It is best you do this before you set up the targets, but if you notice it afterwards, all you have to do is to reset the Wizard and start over with positioning the laser cutter over your sheet again. Once all is set up, let's cut!
Print & Cut is an extremely helpful feature to save you time in cutting out labels or stickers in bulk very quickly - or anything else really! It takes a little effort to set up at first (it took us a while as well!), but once you understand how it works at the basics, you will probably never consider cutting out a dozen stickers by hand again.
If you want to learn more technical details about the Print & Cut Feature, find LightBurn's official documentation right here.
We recommend checking out this video by Laser Livestream and this video by LightBurn to see a more in-depth explanation of the feature and how to offset text and other shapes.
Show us your makes by tagging us (smoke_and_pictures) on Instagram !
Happy making!
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The Variable Text function in LightBurn Software has several options to automate numbering in your projects:
Normal text, Date/Time, Merge/CSV, Serial Number and Cut Setting. Each feature is rather complex and interesting on their own, so we will go with introducing the "Serial Number" function in our current article.
To follow along the demo, you can find the LightBurn file for this demo at the end of this article. Let's go!
Type "d" and place the text to the position you wish to have a serial number counter added. "D" stands for "Decimal", and it helps the software understand that you are adding a sort of command line it needs to link with a selected feature. For the demonstration, we chose to use "Arial" as font to show the interactive elements clearly, however you can go ahead and use just about any fonts you would like. After this, keep the "d" selected, then find the drop down menu on the header (by default it shows Normal) and pick "Serial Number".
To easily create an array, or rather a batch of copies from your design, find the little grid looking icon on the left. This will take off the time consuming labor of having to copy your design by hand and paste them around manually.
Let's go through the options that we used. "X Columns" will produce multiples of your first item horizontally. To increase the amount of rows vertically, adjust the slider in "Y rows".
NOTE: make sure to turn off "Create Virtual Array". Later when you get to virtually test your serial numbers, it might not show any results if you leave this option green (ticked). You should try out what the other sliders do as well!
Click on "Test" to see how your serial numbering will appear on the designs. Note that when you release the button, the virtual test will disappear into "d" again. Don't worry: once the file is transferred into your laser cutter, these serial numbers will appear instead of the "d".
Ready?!
The settings for the border of the BEAM-E logo tab was configured so that at the end, it can be easily broken out to be used as a keychain. We used 4mm poplar plywood here.
We hope that you enjoyed trying out the Variable Text Feature in LightBurn!
Find the file for the keychain right here.
If you want to learn more technical details about the Variable Text feature, find LightBurn's official documentation right here.
We recommend checking out this video introduction on the topic by Laser Livestream.
Show us your makes by tagging us (smoke_and_pictures) on Instagram !
Happy making!
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This extension developed by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories for Inkscape lets you produce interesting Hatch Fill textures for your project. They are behind the Eggbot Project, AxiDraw, the WatercolorBot (as a joint project with Zephyrus T) just to name a few out of the many crazy and amazing projects this team has been working on. Do check them out!
You can find the Github Page for the EggBot Extension here and the EggBot Wiki right here. They have a Twitter page, a Facebook page and a Youtube channel as well.
Before you continue reading, make sure that you have Inkscape installed. If you are new to Inkscape: it's a free open source vector graphics program that is a popular choice for creating SVG & DXF files suitable for importing into laser cutter software like LightBurn, RDWorks & Lasercut. It is available for Windows, Linux and Mac systems
To get the files, head over to "Assets" on the official Github page for the project here.
Once you have downloaded the compressed folder, extract the contents into the folder where you set Inkscape to find your custom extensions. Check out Inkscape's official page for a quick guide on how to locate this folder. If you need more information or help with installing the extension, check out this page which gives a detailed explanation for several operation systems.
In our article, we will work through the steps using Windows - the interface should be nearly the same across all platforms.
NOTE: Make sure every file from the downloaded archive is copied into the Extensions folder, otherwise you might face errors mentioning missing scripts.
Restart Inkscape afterwards. Inkscape only loads new extensions at startup.
The Hatch Fill Extension will produce a texture into areas which has a fill added to them. In case you do no specify which filled closed parts you fish to add hatch fill texture to, the extension will automatically handle every object and produce a hatch fill texture over the whole closed outline of the design.
In the screenshot above, you can see we used 3 different colours - each colour will be used to demonstrate a different kind of hatch fill texture configuration. Remember that these are just examples, and the extension is capable of countless outcomes depending on how you adjust your settings.
Find the Extension following this route.
Check the pop-up menu of the Hatch Fill Extension. If your hardware capabilities allow, tick the "Live preview" box so you get an instant preview with the settings you used as you keep adjusting them. The extension is explaining what each option and adjustment would yield, so go have a play with them! We used two different settings in the mane of the horse figure.
For an interesting "3D" effect inside curved bits such as the stand of the figure, we ticked in the "Crosshatch?" field.
Be careful: if you have generated some hatch fills before this operation and have "Live Preview" ticked in, this process might take a little while. It may even load for minutes, so be patient! If you do not wish the fills to be curved like on our horse, remove the tick from the "Connect nearby ends?" option.
When you are satisfied, go ahead and load the design into your preferred software for preparing files your laser cutter. We used Lightburn Software for our design. Let's get to cutting!
We like the result of this experiment!
A keychain which we use to keep the keys of our BEAM-E laser cutter in order. Important keys need nice and reliable keychains!
Show us your makes by tagging us (smoke_and_pictures) on Instagram !
Happy making!
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If you haven't equipped your laser cutter with a Lightburn Camera yet, we recommend you take a look at our listings of the 120 Degree 8MP Camera, the 120 Degree and 160 Degree 5MP Camera over here and if you need an enclosure, we got your back. If you have any questions about the product, visit our Community Forum.
If you create a grid array, you now have the option to make it virtual, meaning that the copies are generated on the fly. The array properties and content can be changed, and the array updates automatically:
With this in place, the developers of Lightburn will be working on adding support for these virtual arrays on DSP controllers.
Print and Cut is great, but it hasn't been very easy to use. The new Print and Cut wizard walks you through it, making the whole process simpler. Lightburn also has a new video up, showing how to salvage a job without markers in it, using the Print and Cut feature.
You can find it in Tools > Print and Cut.
Ever have trouble remembering which Boolean option is the right one? You're not alone. The new Boolean Assistant lets you preview the different Boolean options, then pick the one that works. Press Ctrl+B to bring it up.
Lets you pick a rotation point on a shape, and rotate / scale it freely around that point. Designed to let you align one shape to another, like trying to align text to a slanted edge. Press Ctrl+2 to start the tool, and follow the prompts at the bottom of the screen.
If you normally use LightBurn in 'Filled rendering' mode, life just got a little bit easier. You can now click anywhere inside a filled shape to select it.
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First of all, "LASER" is actually an acronym! It stands for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation."
The first ever working laser was built by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories in California. The laser medium used was synthetic ruby, and this laser emitted a deep red beam. However, the news of the development of a laser was met with skepticism, and the laser was described as “a solution looking for a problem.”
The CO2 laser and gas laser cutting process using a CO2 mixture was invented by Kumar Patel at Bell Labs in New Jersey. The CO2 laser was found to be cheaper and more efficient than the ruby laser.
There are two main CO2 laser types used in small to medium size laser machines, commonly referred to as DC (Direct Current; or ‘glass’ tubes) and RF (Radio Frequency; also called ‘metal’ or ‘ceramic’ lasers). While DC is a water cooled system, RF works with an air cooled system.
One of the differences between DC and RF systems is the kerf width when cutting (width of slit made by the laser), which will end up to be narrower on an RF laser. The beam of a DC machine is elliptical, and the RF will produce a rounder beam which allows for the before mentioned kerf tightness. A good quality DC laser cutter can produce nearly the same output as an RF laser cutter, however the visible difference that we meant above is best observed through a microscope. These days, both DC laser cutters and RF laser cutters are more available to the common populace at a price they can afford.
The firing of CO2 laser cutting machines consist of CO2 gas along with a mixture of other gases like helium and nitrogen. This type of gas mixture is charged up by electric discharge which then produces the laser beam. The wavelength of such cutters is 10.6μm.
Laser Cutting: when the material is cut in a clean line produced by a powerful laser beam, and completely penetrates through the workpiece.
Laser Marking: this operation does not completely penetrate the material; only the appearance and properties of the material gets changed by the heat of the beam.
Laser Engraving: an operation that removes the material from the surface leaving an embossing/cavity behind with your design. The heat of the laser first melts the material and then vaporizes it immediately to create sharp impressions.
About anything that could be of household use!
This includes wood, certain plastics, leather, paper and card, some fabrics, anodised aluminium or metals coated properly, and even glass under certain circumstances and safety precautions.
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But what are these other machines?!
Diode lasers can range from a simple desktop build to more industrial setups used for skin treatment or other medical procedures. In general what we refer to as "diode laser" is the component within the machine that produces the beam which will then engrave or cut the work piece or surface it is aimed at.
These lasers are also called semiconductor lasers. Light is emitted by passing current through a semiconductor, and that light is used for various applications. They are used widely in our daily life from laser printers to optic disks such as DVDs, etc. These lasers have the advantage of being small and are low voltage, low current, and therefore are often mounted on smaller laser cutters. Diode laser cutters are often cheap and the quality and safety considerations vary wildly, too. Although they are able to cut and engrave materials like wood, diode laser cutters have a difficulty dealing with acrylics.
Nd:YAG lasers are optically charged using a flashtube. These lasers typically emit light with a wavelength of 1064 nm, within the infrared spectrum.
This type of technology allows the cutting of non-steels, such as copper, brass, aluminium and aluminium alloys.
In fibre lasers, the active gain medium is an optical fibre doped with rare-earth elements such as erbium, ytterbium, neodymium, dysprosium, praseodymium, thulium and holmium. They are related to doped fibre amplifiers, which provide light amplification without lasing.
Fibre laser cutters are able to cut through stainless steel, carbon steel and ceramics as well.
An RF laser uses a metal chamber that contains the laser gas mixture as its "tube". Precisely controlled radio frequency energy is used to create ionised gas plasma for the laser to produce a laser beam. These lasers are designed to operate without high voltage and water cooling.
Laser cutters which use a Galvanometer or Galvo system use mirror technology to move the laser beam in different directions by rotating and adjusting mirror angles within the boundaries of a work area. Galvo lasers are ideal for using fast speed and intricate fine detailed marking and engraving. It does not need much maintenance; the only maintenance required for Galvo laser is the revision of the lenses.
Plasma cutters are not to be confused with a "Plasma laser", as that is what we can see in popular cartoons and Sci-Fi shows. As opposed to common belief, plasma cutting doesn’t use fire or a flame. Instead, it uses conductive ionised gas (or simply just air), which is also known as plasma, and its cutting process is characterised by the use of a plasma torch. When activated, the plasma torch will project a mixture of gases, including nitrogen and hydrogen, through the nozzle, which subsequently creates plasma.
This state of material is able to melt (cut) through the toughest of materials.
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Aaron Rodriguez developed an incredible online generator that lets you prepare your own mazes. The options are so numerous that we decided to only showcase one way of using it in this article. If you decided to experiment, show your makes to us via Instagram!
Every option has an explanation next to their input fields, which is truly helpful as there are a plethora of settings to play with. If you are using Lightburn with your machine set up within the software, you do not have to worry about the "Printer configuration" settings on the right side panel.
In this article we will not cover the "Calibration Rectangle Configuration", because it is intended for simulation, and even without adjusting anything within those settings we got a truly awesome result that we are going to show in the coming pictures. Once again, the Lightburn Software makes it so much more convenient to do such operations too.
To generate your files, first click "Export SVG Blueprint" to enable the "Download" button.
If you click on the "?" at the print mode options, you get to see how each mode will look like. The Single sheet mode is what we are going to cover. We do recommend that you try out the Floor and Wall mode as well, that is, if you have the patience for the pieces!
A generated layout of the Floor and Wall maze will look like this:
This week, we are going to talk about a free Inkscape Extension that helps you generate outlines which are ready for laser cutting.
Inkscape is a free open source vector graphics program that is a popular choice for creating SVG & DXF files suitable for importing into laser cutter software like LightBurn, RDWorks & Lasercut. It works best with Windows but is also available for Linux and Mac
The Jigsaw Puzzle Inkscape Extension is made by Neon22. They made other cool Inkscape extensions as well, be sure to check them out!
Once you have downloaded the compressed folder, extract the contents into the folder where you set Inkscape to find your custom extensions. Check out Inkscape's official page for a quick guide on how to locate this folder.
Once you are all set and have restarted Inkscape (if you had it open already), you will be able to find the Lasercut Jigsaw Puzzle extension under Extensions -> Render -> Lasercut Jigsaw... .
Clicking on the extension, it will bring up a window where you can set your measurements and number of pieces at ease. Make sure that you hit "LIVE PREVIEW" before you make any adjustments, and that the "UNITS" is set to "mm".
We recommend that you see for yourself how each adjustment changes the preview of the puzzle! Have fun! :)
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In this article, we are going to show you how to make your own jigsaw puzzles using a simple online generator, how to add an artwork for engraving in Lightburn Software and how to adjust this picture's brightness and make other adjustments if desired.
The author of this tool is Manuel Kasten, and the Github source for the generator can be found right here.
At the end the pieces, while handling them, might leave your fingers a little bit dark - the burnt wood from the laser beam will stay on the pieces after the process. If you are using wood as the working material, we suggest you use a light varnish spray over the pieces, this will seal the surface and will not leave your hands dusty from touching them. You could wipe them also carefully with a wet cloth.
We hope that you enjoyed this tutorial, and wish you happy creating!
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One of the cheapest and the least messy way to engrave metal with your CO2 laser cutter is using a medium such as Dry Molybdenum Lubricant, or Dry Moly Lube in short.
To allow the marking agent to properly bond with the metal, the laser must be run at low-speed and high-power configuration. Users sometimes find that they are able to wipe off the mark after lasering - this tells that the piece should be run again at a lower speed and higher power setting.
The advantage of metal marking with a CO2 laser is that the mark is actually produced on top of the metal without removing material, so there is no impact on the metal’s tolerance or strength. Coated metals, such as anodized aluminum or painted brass, don't need pre-treatment.
However, if you are like us and love innovative technology (and have the budget for it), a sure-shot way to engrave your metal work piece with your CO2 laser cutter is by using a CerMark Spray. We recently received a sample of this cool product, and tried it out right away. The results were shocking!
CerMark marking materials consist of traditional ceramic glazing material with a twist: a thermal absorber. The ceramic glazing material is a mixture of with pigments for coloring, and glass frit: small particles of partially fused glass designed to melt at a much lower temperature than ordinary window glass.
CerMark's own method called TherMark uses a laser as the heat source to fuse the ceramic glaze instead of a kiln. All this happens in microseconds as opposed to hours, consuming far less “energy” and without compromising or damaging the material being marked. It is the thermal absorber within the TherMark marking materials which enhances and speeds the heat absorption from the laser beam, improving the transfer to the glaze. The thermal absorber also serves in allowing the substrate to be marked using multiple laser types. As we know, a CO2 laser cannot mark most metal because the beam cannot be absorbed by the substrate. Because of the absorbers, TherMark facilitates marking metals with a CO2 laser, increasing the range of applications the laser system is capable of.
Although not the cheapest on the market (and being the only brand currently that produces such engraving chemical), we were so stoked at the results that we would recommend to have a go at CerMark's products if you get the chance.
Are you looking to buy a laser cutter? Take a look at our range of machines, and let's get in touch if you would like more information.
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The Lightburn Camera shown in its 3D printed housing, now available in the UK from Smoke & Mirrors store, with fast UK shipping.
We now offer stock of the official Lightburn camera here in the UK (the same as is offered on the official Lightburn store but shipped from our Nottingham, UK HQ). Currently we offer the 5mp 120 degree camera, which is the most commonly used for bed sizes from 300mm long to 900mm long.
The camera is useful performing the following tasks.
Use the Lightburn camera to capture a calibrated overlay of your laser cutter's work bed. Then simply open your artwork into Lightburn and drag and drop your objects onto the picture of the workpiece. This is a great feature if you need to put your artwork in one specific place on the workpiece, or for using up all those bits of scrap material.
Here we place the Smoke & Mirrors logo onto the handle of a wooden spatula, ready for engraving!
Use the Lightburn camera to capture a shape or even marker pen drawing, using highly configurable trace functionality, that shape can be instantly changed into a cutting or engraving path.
Using the trace function and the Lightburn camera to exactly cut out the printing on the side of a cardboard box.
Here you can see the result on the workpiece!
At Smoke & Mirrors here in the UK, we've been using Lightburn cameras for a while on refurbished and upgraded machines, soon we'll be bringing a modern 600mm by 400mm bed cutter to our range which will include Lightburn Software as standard and the Lightburn camera included in the price for our UK customers.
]]>We made a Surprise Nest template that you can use, find the files here. Add some fake grass (or shredded paper, like we did), perhaps other colourful bits like feathers, pompoms, chocolate, other sweets - and voilà!
If you use shredded paper, it's easy to dye them with either watercolour paint, acrylics or even the colourant for eggs. See more pictures of the box below.
The box template we used as base has been generated through Boxes.py, the platform that we covered in our previous article. Here is the page for the generator: RegularBox.
Have fun, and happy Easter holidays!
You are about to prepare packagings for your new incoming orders, but you don't want to use a standard cardboard box. You also own or have access to a laser cutter, but don't have the time to spend hours and hours on designing the layout for the box file from scratch. The solution: a handy open source file generator!
Florian Festi has been developiong a tool that can save you all those hours, namely boxes.py. Who wouldn’t want to have a platform to easily cut useful boxes of a hundred kinds?!
In this article we are going to show how the tool works with a basic Two Pieces box, generated via the boxes.py platform. We added the logo to the file after it was generated; this can be done with any vector graphics software of your choice. Make sure that your graphics are oriented properly and have been added to the correct side, otherwise you might get an upside-down logo, and will need to cut and engrave that single piece again.
Stay tuned for upcoming articles of this series, in which we introduce different smart solutions of easy-made boxes, tips and tricks!
Before you get started with generating the files, get familiar with the settings. It is important that you set everything in a way that it makes sense with the materials and tools you have available, otherwise you might end up with something that simply does not close well, it has gaps or is being too tight.
Although the article will mention "brooches", they are the same wearable items as "broaches" - the vocabulary depends on where you are from. Brooches have a whole world-wide culture to their own, and there appears to be no limit to what can be added under this label.
Meet Caitlin aka. Frankie Peggotty, the creator behind the charming Bernie Sanders Chibi Brooch!
Caitlin is the maker behind Frankie Peggotty, specialising in laser cut acrylic brooches. Living in rural Australia, Caitlin splits her time between her day job as a doctor, her hobby brooch business and spending time with her three dogs and homogenous blob of cats.
In our interview with Caitlin below, she describes her journey from the advantages and disadvantages of having her acrylic pieces cut by a third party, to acquiring her very own laser cutter machine with the income from her products; the learning curve and the benefits of having her own tools of production in order to save time, cost, and be able to work on her hobby projects at any time she chooses. She also lets us peek into the complications between a work-hobby balance as a doctor, and how she still manages to find the right harmony between the two (spoilers: owning her own laser cutter machine improved the efficiency by a lot!).
1. How did you get started in laser cutting? (i.e. where did you learn? Was anyone or anything influential in your getting started? What was good about it or bad about it?) and what sort of things do you like to make?
I got introduced to acrylic brooches by a friend of mine who collected. We have a great subculture of collecting acrylic brooches here in Australia, and we have a lot of indie makers.
That same friend of mine said she'd like to start making her own acrylic brooches, so a group of friends and I decided to use the idea as an excuse for a get together, and organised to go on a course to learn how to make acrylic brooches. Normally these courses were just assembling pre-cut acrylic designs, but we mentioned before we wanted to know more about the making process, so they also taught us the process of going from a design into vectors for laser cutters.
It turned out I really enjoyed the course. Making acrylic brooches provided a creative outlet outside of work, so I decided to start making and selling my own designs as a hobby - and thus, Frankie Peggotty came into being. I mostly make brooches that I intend on wearing, so I'm mostly focused on pop culture characters and cute animals.
I originally just vectored designs, and sent them off to a third party to have laser cut, before assembling and selling them myself. However, this was quite limiting for a number of reasons. Not only was there a prolonged wait time involved, while you waited for someone else to laser cut and mail back, but it also limited what I could design. Because there was a minimum cost to cutting acrylic, I'd have to wait until I had a number of designs in the same acrylic colours to justify the purpose. I also found myself limiting the number of acrylic colours in a piece, for the same reason. It was also annoying if I lost a piece, because it meant starting the process all over again, and getting more stuff cut to justify getting the one piece I needed.
I really wanted to get a laser cutter, but given I'm mostly a hobby maker, I couldn't justify the cost. However, over time I earned enough money selling brooches to buy my own laser cutter last September, which has been amazing! The learning curve with cutting my own acrylic has been huge, but I was lucky enough to be friends with some other indie makers who helped me out with learning how to use my laser cutter. Still, it's been a lot of experimenting to find the optimal laser settings for different types of acrylic.
Hugely.
Back when I was getting someone else to cut my acrylic for me, it usually took a minimum of two weeks between starting a design and getting a completed brooch - and that would be considered very fast. Now I have my own laser cutter, it's hours.
When I decided I wanted my own Bernie brooch, I ended up drawing Bernie on my iPad during my lunch break at work, then came home, vectored, cut and assembled him in a couple hours. This meant that within 24hrs of the inauguration, I already had a brooch that captured the moment. That kind of speed is just not possible without your own laser cutter.
3. What would you suggest is a good way to get into laser cutting?
I was really lucky that when I was introduced to brooch making, that I had a group of friends who were also interested. It meant starting out that I had a number of people who were also learning, and we tended to bounce our problems off one another and work things out as a group. It was also really useful to have someone to debrief to, when something went wrong (which it has, and will continue to).
In retrospect, the fact that I learned in stages was really useful. This allowed me to master each skill before adding the next step on, so it wasn't nearly as stressful as it would have been trying to learn every step at once. I only moved on to laser cutting my own acrylic after I'd already mastered vectoring and assembly, which meant I only had to focus on how to use the laser, rather than everything else that came before and after it.
That being said, I find making acrylic brooches to be very enriching, and it's a great way to unwind and do something that's completely separate to medicine.
As Frankie Peggotty has grown, I've found it really important to try and reach a balance between my hobby and medicine. I only have my Etsy open for a week a month, and now I have a laser cutter, I'm making a limited amount of made-to-order brooches each month, to make sure that I don't take on more than I can take. It's been a bit of a learning process finding that balance, but it was really important that my creative outlet remained enjoyable and didn't add extra stress to my life.
Having my own laser cutter has both added to and reduced my burden, in terms of workload. It's added a lot of freedom to what I can make - I'm able to make a one-off just for me, or fifty of the same brooch if it's required. However, it's added to my active production time considerably. I do have to factor in how long it will take to cut acrylic into my making time, which is something I'm still getting the hang of.
I originally made the Bernie chibi for my own entertainment. I saw the photo of Bernie on Reddit, and watched as people quickly produced their own creative version of him - mostly photoshopping in the beginning, but also painting, drawing, baking, etc. I wanted to join in, so I quickly sketched a Bernie while at work, and made him that night and posted a picture of him.
I thought when I posted the picture on Instagram, it would get a few laughs from people, and a few others would think I'm insane. However, after my post got hundreds of likes, and a lot of people saying they wanted one, I decided to put them up for sale. I didn't actually think anyone would want to buy him. He was a meme, afterall. The zeitgeist was going to settle quickly, and I didn't really expect anyone to actually follow through and buy one.
Caitlin's Etsy shop Frankie Peggotty is open for a week every month; keep an eye out on her Instagram profile for the next opening period!
You can find and follow her on Facebook as well to keep track of her updates and inspiring new projects.
]]>We’re very proud of our selection of stickers here at Smoke & Mirrors. We like to have lots of different stickers that we like to share with our customers as a little treat inside their store orders of mirrors, lenses and CO2 laser tubes. We’re always sure to take a stack of our safety stickers when we do a service visit too.
Recently we decided to make a special sticker to reflect the difficult times we are all in with the pandemic. Many laser cutters owners joined 3D printer tinkerers to help ease the COVID19 PPE shortages, being able to help at this time was of course its own reward. But we felt here at Smoke & Mirrors that many hard working laser cutters and their operators deserved a little bit of bling for their machines, so that, one day, when we look back at 2020 we can remember what our laser cutters did to help out!
We try and introduce some new stickers from time to time. Most recently we’ve commissioned a sticker to celebrate the (perhaps rather dubious) love tinkerers have for their K40 cutters!
Why not find ways for your customers to celebrate their love of what they do with stickers too? After all it’s healthier to include a sticker in an order than a tiny sugary bag of Haribo (yes we all love Haribo AND stickers too).
We have two strategic partners in the delivery of our high quality stickers. First we love graphic design and we like to go to local small businesses like Lydia at thoughtsmakethings.com up the road in Sheffield. Lydia created all the artwork for Smoke & Mirrors as well as our logo (it’s Chinese for SMOKE MIRRORS LASERS).
Then for our high quality stickers, as well as efficiency, a good price and speed, we use Sticker Mule, an EU based producer. We love how many different options they have as well as how easy it is to load the artwork up to the site. They’re super quick at proofing and have never quibbled over my adjustments. Stickers come quickly via UPS and I even get a text message for tracking.
If you’d like to make an order of stickers with Stickermule, I have a referral code that will get you an £8 discount on your first order too, just email me and let me know you’re interested!
If you are looking for a little inspiration on new materials to try you can check out our blog on them here.
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and of course we sell a full range of lenses too:
https://smokeandmirrors.store/collections/all/lens
Thanks!
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Royal Mail:
Friday 18 December -2nd Class and 2nd Class Signed For
Monday 21 December - 1st Class and 1st Class Signed For
and Royal Mail Tracked 48
Tuesday 22 December- Royal Mail Tracked 24*
Wednesday 23 December - Special Delivery Guaranteed
Hermes:
15th Dec - Hermes UK Economy
ParcelForce:
19th December Parcelforce Express 48
22nd December - Parcelforce Express AM, Parcelforce Express by 10, Parcelforce Express by 9, Parcelforce Express 24
It’s worth remembering that these are mainland UK delivery dates only so if you customers are in the Highlands or Islands set the cut off a couple of days earlier.
Happy Posting!
]]>When it comes to laser cutting there are so many materials out there it might leave you in a bit of a spin as to where to start. That’s why we’ve made this list of our top ten materials for laser cutting and the advantages of each one.
1. Cardboard – although one of the most inexpensive materials on the market this handy little material is perfect for things like early prototypes or packaging projects. Because it’s so easy to paint and join together it also lends itself really nicely to craft or children’s projects. We absolutely love this cardboard Christmas Tree by CardboardChristmas. Cardboard also has the added advantage of being recyclable and bio-degradable.
2. Acrylic – is a really versatile material coming in hundreds of different colour and thickness combinations. It has a quality look and finish, you can achieve a high level of detail, it engraves well and is affordable. All of these advantages make it great for jewellery, hardware/electronic enclosures, signage, ornaments and wall art. Although this Flamingo Necklace from Little Moose might not be to everyone’s taste we love the level of detail and you have to admit it’s an impressive piece!
3. Bamboo – although this is more expensive than wood it gives a really high quality look and finish and is a renewable resource which has become a popular sales point over the last few years. It’s suited to jewellry, coasters, clocks, ornaments, picture frames, boxes and wall art. Cachiko has a great range of laser cut and engraved picture frames.
4. Felt – is great for making things like jewelry, coasters, trivets, crafts and ornaments. It’s a fully renewable source, comes in a large range of colours and thicknesses and your projects will have a high quality finish. These placemats from KreativDesignCo are a perfect example of what can be achieved with laser cut felt.
5. Cork – things have come a long way since old fashioned boring corks boards thanks to the help of laser cutting, this Death Star by MaddisonCherie is the perfect gift for any Star Wars fan. Cork is a flexible, renewable material source that lends itself well to coasters, crafts, kids projects and pin boards.
6. Leather – this is one of the more expensive materials that you can laser cut the results that you can use but the results that can be achieved are astounding. This leather bag from Selfridges is a prime example of the high quality finish that can be achieved.
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If lockdown has taught us one thing around here it’s how to bake! There have been more cakes and cookies than we could possibly eat but now we have seen these cupcake trays pass me the mixer!
All of the designs by Little Pig Jewellery are amazing but her Mostly Ghostly collection is perfect for this season. The little ghost with the spell book is adorably spooky. If you can’t decide which you like the most she has a necklace that combines all her ghostly creations.
If you’re in the online retail space and looking for something a little different to add to your inventory this month how about something like this? With local lockdowns becoming more and more common people are always looking for crafty projects to do with the family and this ticks all the boxes. This is a great example by CreativeGiftsNI.
Door wreaths have seen a huge surge in popularity in the UK over the last couple of years, they aren’t confined to are friends across the water anymore. Why not show your street that you mean business with this witchy creation by MimiKatiHandmade?
Frilly Industries are one of our customers and we always like to give credit to them where we can. She’s going all out with her Halloween themed projects this year. These ear studs are super detailed for such a small project, just add your own studs and off you go!
Have you heard of Halloween cards? No? Neither had we until now but now we know they are a thing I’m definitely going to be sending some! The combination of the grey card with the black laser cut web really makes the design pop, we love discovering new things like this thanks Oh So Beautiful!
Nothing says spooky quite like a skull but this sugar skull makes ghastly, beautiful. This multi layered project will put your creativity to the test but the results are so worth it! We aren’t sure what you’d use it for but all we know is we want one! If this one isn't for you then LaserCraftum has lots of other designs available.
If, like our town, yours is doing something similar to the rainbow spotting (but with pumpkins) so the little ones can still enjoy Halloween how about taking a laser cut lantern by SammyLou on your walk. Made from paper, so battery powered tealights are recommended, this is sure to make heads turn. Just hopefully not 360 degrees.
We’d love to see your creations this Halloween so as always tag us on Insta @smoke_and_pictures
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