It’s Monday…let’s make something! ~ Week 45
What a week! Here in Western Washington we don’t get a ton of snow…but at least once a winter we get a decent amount. And then it’s back up into the 40s and everything melts. Over the last week we got 3+ inches every night and it would get up to the low 40s and melt and then freeze at night and snow more. It was a crazy cycle of weather that gave my children THREE snow days. Oof! I tell you what…I’m happy that the weather has stabilized and is now back to its normal stuff. No. More. Snow. Days!
Okay..on to the project! This week is Valentine’s Day…and I wanted to do something fun for my oldest’s classmates! Recently I saw something come across my facebook feed and thought, “I could make that!” So I gave it a shot! I’ve been having a lot of fun working with my xTool S1 laser. It’s really opened up a new side of creativity that I’m having a blast with!
Check out today’s video! ——->
So I opened up XCS and set to work creating the tic tac toe boards. I started by “drawing” out the shape of the board, then made the cutouts for the squares and hearts. This software makes designing things super easy…and it allows you to group things together and then copy/paste to create duplicates of the same thing. Which is what I did with the square/heart spot. Once I had them all made I was able to put them in place. I was also able to copy/paste the main part of the board so I’d have the back piece the same size. With the board pieces along with the squares/hearts in place it was time to move on to the words. I had in mind the font I wanted to use so I set that. On the front of the board I am going to put each kid’s name, while on the back I’m going to engrave “Happy Valentine’s Day! From, *my kid’s name*. And for today’s project I added my logo to it. I don’t think I’ll add it to the actual ones for the kids.
Once everything was set, as far as the design, it was time to do all the set up for the laser. Auto measuring so the machine knows where the wood is. It was then time to mark out the cutting area. Once that was in place I grouped the front and back of the boards together so I could resize them to fit into the marked area. Then it was time to “frame” out the work to make sure everything was in the right place. When I was happy with that I hit the “process” button, which brings up the screen that shows you the path the laser will take along with how long the project will take. Then I started the laser and let it do it’s thing!
It’s crazy to watch how this machine works! It’s also humbling, because there’s no way I could do something like this by hand…well I could, but it’d take me ages to do one board! Now that everything was engraved and cut out it’s time to put it all together. I used CA glue to put the front piece and back together, and used some of the activator spray to make it set up quickly. Then it was time to paint the hearts. This is what took the longest! I already have in mind how I’ll do it for the kids…and hopefully it’ll take less time!
I’m actually quite pleased with how this turned out! I’ll make a much larger version for my kids to have here at home…I’ll just have to figure out what shapes I want to use, standard Xs and Os? We shall see! This was such a fun project and I hope the kids will like their boards…if only because it’s something different.
I hope you all have an amazing week! And we’ll see you back up in the barn (or maybe down here in the garage) next Monday!
