This weekend assignment was producing a Rice Owl in wood using OEDK’s laser cutter. It was particularly interesting because we had no experience with lasers cutters, so, we have to learn how to use it and produce a quite complicated Rice Owl in less than two weeks.
First we have to edit the owl in Illustrator, basically making contrast between different areas and removing the original layer. The reason to remove the original layer is that without doing so when the file was imported to EngraveLab, the original layer hides behind the reformatted one, and will be cut if not deselected.
Illustrator file RiceOwlLogoFormatted (1)
PDF file RiceOwlLogoFormatted (1)
In our first visit to the laser cutter, we learn the basics and safety procedures. We cut a small rectangle and engraved it with 6 different power/speed settings in order to see which ones would be the best for our owl. Then, we tried to cut the owl for the first time. However, we did not realize that the contour line had parts inside the owl, not just the border, and we set the machine to cut this whole line, so the laser cutter cut some parts in the middle of the owl making it shatter.
On the second visit to the laser cutter, we figure out the contour line problem, and tried to cut the owl again. But first, we tried to cut a small version of it to make sure that it would not shatter again. However, this small version got burnt by the laser, because it was too small, but it did not shatter as the first one. So, the contour problem was fixed. So, we tried to cut a large owl but the computer crashed and we had to leave.
In the third visit, we already knew exactly what to do, but we were really limited in time. We tried to cut the owl again, but, for some reason, one of the lines was not engraved, and we end up with an incomplete owl.
The fourth and final visit to the laser cutter was pretty straightforward, we set the speed at 400 and power at 15, 22 and 30 to engrave and speed 40 power 60 to cut. We learnt by past experiences that these values would give us a very good contrast in our owl. And the result was this beautiful owl in the picture below.
It was really nice to make it and we feel really accomplish, being able to produce it in one week without any previous experience with laser cutting.
P.S: Here is a time lapse video of the laser cutter making the owl. This thing is simply amazing!
