The goal of this project is to create a laser cut box with an engraved image and text.  The method of joining is a pressure fit finger joint without any other fixtures.  I had initially created a box with curved corners, but changed to a simpler square box due to dimensional tolerances.

I used adobe illustrator with an online box making program to create my finger joint box files.  Once in illustrator I added text and images by using a black and white image trace on downloaded jpegs.

Once I had my adobe files I started laser cutting.  My first pass did not cut all the way through the wood, so I had to use a box cutter on the bottom side to get my box sides.

Once I was done laser cutting I used sandpaper to remove burn marks. In the image below the wood on the right has been sanded and the one on the left has not.

To curve my first attempt at a box I ran the box under water while slowly bending the sides so as to not stress the wood fibers.  When making this box I didn’t take into account the distortion that flexing the corners of the box would go through, so I ended up with a major (~1/8″) gap in the side of my box.

My biggest challenge and improvement in this project was in engraving images.  I improved my color to black and white conversion skills, which can be most clearly seen in the comic side of the box.  I was able to adjust color threshold and greyscale parameters to make the comic readable at a relatively small size.

Cost estimate:

Plywood: $3

Time: 3 hours @ $25/h: $75

Total Cost: $78

Most of this project’s cost is tied up in working time.  This could probably be changed, as I was not actively working on laser cutting whenever there was wood in the machine.  If actually charging a client, I might only charge for materials and design time with a smaller flat rate for laser cutting time.