Prior to this assignment, I had some (not a lot) experience using the laser cutters at the OEDK. I would be given a file and basically just had to press “print”. Other than knowing how to change the line thickness, I had minimal experience using Adobe Illustrator or kerf measuring. With this project I finally got some much needed experience with Illustrator that will be super useful in the future!
On my first try in cutting the box, I made two major errors. I did not measure for the kerf well (I only cut out like two flaps in some scrap wood and tried to measure the distance there), and I did not use the actual thickness of my wood when using the box-making website. This left me with a bunch of sides that did not fit together and would not make a good looking box even if they did.
Cutting the first box!
The final cut of the first box!
After this blunder, I decided I would actually use the design for measuring the kerf that was given in out assignment. This left me with a much better-fitting box, but I still made two major errors. I once again neglected to use the actual thickness of my wood when creating the design of the box, and I did not carefully check to make sure all the edges of my images fit into their boxes, which left me with a side of my box that did not cut fully.
Using scrap wood to measure for the kerf the second time!
Once my error regarding using the thickness of my slab of wood was corrected, I was finally ready to print a fully functional box! I decided to add some more images to my final box that I thought better represented me! I ran into a few errors when trying to add new images to the cut in illustrator, but after some work, I was finally able to make a good box!
The final box design! This part took some troubleshooting in Illustrator but ended up working in the end!
Cutting the final box! (You can see where that one part just did not cut lol!)
The fully clean workspace!
