For the laser cutting assignment, we were instructed to engrave and cut a high quality Rice War Owl from wood using the OEDK’s Boss Layer.

The Rice War Owl

The first thing we did was decide on how we wanted the final product to look. We decided that we did not want to have a background around the owl and that we wanted to give it as much as a 3D look as possible so we designed it accordingly.

The first thing we did was convert the image to grayscale for high contrast. We then added a small border around the whole image so that it would be properly cut.

Final .AI file

Once the file was prepared for the laser cutter, we imported it into Engrave Lab Boss Edition. We had issues at first with importing, the owl logo was doubled with a smaller logo in the center, and after troubleshooting it turned out it was due to a hidden layer in the .AI file which we removed. We then set the job colors for engraving and cutting.

Engrave lab file with all job colors added

As shown in the above image, we decided to do the border (in green) at speed 40.000 and power 60.000, the blue sections at speed 400.000 and power 70.000, the pink parts at speed 400.000 and power 40.000, the red sections at speed 400.000 and power 20.000, the white section at speed 400.000 and power 50.000, and the black sections at speed 30.000 and power 60.000. All sections had 1 pass except the black part which had 3 passes. The final product was approximately 6 x 8 inches large.

The Boss laser cutter

Due to these settings and the large size of the owl, it took approximately 30 minutes to cut and engrave.

Final product

Unfortunately, it came out very charred and covered with soot but the geometry is correct and the edges are clean.

For the second attempt, we decided to make it smaller (3×4 inches) and did the border at speed 40.000 and power 50.000, the blue sections at speed 400.000 and power 60.000, the pink parts at speed 400.000 and power 30.000, the red sections at speed 400.000 and power 20.000, the white section at speed 400.000 and power 40.000, and the black sections at speed 30.000 and power 50.000. All sections had 1 pass except the black part which had 3 passes. However, it still appeared charred.

Second attempt

On the second visit, the laser cutter was not working so I was unfortunately unable to cut another owl that day.

The laser cutter is still down so I was unable to achieve the quality I was aiming for. If it was not down, I would have tried making the border at speed 35.000 and power 60.000, the blue sections at speed 400.000 and power 25.000, the pink parts at speed 400.000 and power 15.000, the red sections at speed 400,000 and power 0.000 so that the natural grain would remain, the white section at speed 400.000 and power 20.000, and the black sections at speed 30.000 and power 60.000 with 1 pass per section and rearrange the job colors so that the owl is engraved before being cut to reduce some of the charring.

Though it was challenging, I now feel more confident using a laser cutter from the experience.

Thank you for reading,

Danielle