It’s Monday…let’s make something! ~ Week 44
Happy February! January felt like it was 800 days long…but we made it! And this past weekend it was cold and snowy here, which was a treat since we haven’t had any real snow yet this winter! Thankfully it didn’t stick around long enough to delay or cancel school today for the kids! ****happy dance****
Today I decided to stay down here in the house and work with the Xtool laser again! I’d been wanting to make a sign for my mom and stepdad along with some slate coasters. They have property in Arizona and they’ve named it “The Last Buckaroo Ranch.” I found this sign at Michael’s and thought it would be perfect for what I wanted to do, it has a nice distressed look to it!
I started by pulling their logo into the XCS software. I didn’t need to do any editing, other than removing the white background. Then I put the board in the bed of the laser, measured the distance and then set my marking space. Once that was done I was “processed” the project and hit the start. This project took about 40 minutes to complete…but unlike working on the lathe, while the Xtool is doing its job…I’m able to work on other things at my desk in the garage. Once it was finished, I removed the sign from the laser, put the honeycomb tray back in and set up the slate coasters for the next project.
This one required a little different approach. I measured where the coasters were at in the laser bed…then framed out the four coasters. Once I had that done, I was able to invert the image(since I’m engraving on a dark surface….you need to invert the image), resize it and make three copies of it…one for each coaster. Once that was done I hit the “process” button and let the laser do it’s work. These four coasters only took about 8 minutes to get done. I realized during the engraving that I missed a few spots where the white background wasn’t taken out…but there wasn’t really anything I could do about that.
I should mention that I did spray each of the coasters with a clear coat, which was suppose to help making the engraving stand out. I think it did a pretty good job! What do you think?
I really love woodworking…but having the Xtool laser has really opened up my options for what I can make and sell! I have a few other things I want to try out, and I look forward to sharing them with you over the next few months! Next week we’ll use the laser again…and I can’t wait to share with you what I have in mind!
Hope you all have a great first week of February! And I’ll see you back here next Monday!
