In this assignment, I created a 4″-by-4″ laser-cut box using stocked plywood at the OEDK with engravings to celebrate Jones College. I used makeabox.io to create the template for my box, Adobe Illustrator to place my components together, and the Epilog Fusion M2 to cut out the sides of my box before assembling them together.

Process

I started by creating a box template from makeabox.io to familiarize myself with what it would look like, but also so I could check what the kerf would be on the laser cutter I used. This took several box edges, but I ultimately went with a kerf of 0.01 inches. I used settings of 2 speed, 100 power, and 10 frequency to cut the last two edge sets, after respective speeds of 4 and 3 for the first and second sets didn’t fully cut through. The lower speed made for very burnt edges, so I taped the final kerf check, and planned to do so for my final box.

After, I put together the Adobe Illustrator file that I would use with the laser cutter, taking steps to ensure that each box side was a closed shape with one path, that the vector cut lines all had a stroke of 0.001″, and put the two designs and signature that I wanted to engrave on the box. I used the provided Jones College crest from Canvas, and also created a very simple engraving of the slogan “Jones Wins Again!” on the top of my box using Canva. Both designs were set to stroke size of 0.004″. Finally before sending my file to the laser cutter, I arranged the sides of my boxes into a 2×3 grid to most efficiently use the space on the plywood.

For my vector cuts, I used 2 speed, 100 power, and 10 frequency. For raster cuts, I used 35 speed and 60 power, following the guide provided by the laser cutter PC.

In hindsight

Overall, I don’t regret much about this process! There were small learning curves and ways that I could have been more efficient but I am satisfied with the work I was able to produce.

To start, instead of guessing and checking with multiple iterations of my box edges to check the kerf, I could have reproduced the kerf check that was in the assignment document, which surely would have saved me some time.

Additionally, I forgot to tape the plywood before starting my box, and as a result, have some burnt edges along the faces of my box — but this didn’t end up being as much of a problem as it was when I was doing kerf checks, which could have to do with the fact that I ultimately used two different sheets of wood between the two parts of this project. And even though the wood for my final box was thicker than the first wood I tested on, it made clean cuts for each box piece, and I think I could have gotten away with running a higher speed setting (either 3 or 4) that would have burned the wood less.

While assembly was overall easy, and I was confident with the kerf I had found, everything fit a little more snug than it did when I was testing with different kerf values. By the time I had gotten to putting in the last side, I had to mallet it in to get it flush with the rest of the edges. I realized too late that I had the wrong side of the wood out, and pulled it out to correct it, losing the backsides of some tabs in the process as shown below on the left side of this box face. Once it was in, I had no doubt that the sides of my box were secured together!

Cost Analysis

Birch Plywood (1/8″x12″x20″)………………..$5.19

Epilog Laser Fusion M2 40……………………~$30,000

Adobe Illustrator (Student)…………………..$19.99/mo

Operating Costs ($13/hr)……………………..$13

The total sum to be able to use this tooling method is high, but it’s more useful to break that down: the cost of the material is very low, one can get a sheet of plywood that has enough area to make several boxes for less than $10; the cost of machinery to laser cut is very high compared to anything else that you would need to use this method, with a laser cutter being in the multiple $10k area. Finally, if someone just wanted to create this box, they could theoretically get a free Adobe Creative Cloud trial for a week, but to regularly use Adobe’s programs to create shape files to laser cut, one would need to regularly invest. The job I sent to the laser cutter took less than 20 minutes, and adding in various kerf tests would add in several minutes. Given this, an alternative to not owning your own laser cutter may be to get to a maker space where you can pay a smaller rate to get a job done.