MSRaynsford

The second set of stencils I cut for Ape index  were based on their logo. The design has a few islands though, parts that are not connected to the stencil, which made it trickier to cut. The solution in this case was to create a bridge piece that held all the islands in the correct place. The bridge was a little bit too flexible when made from thin card but could easily have been strengthened by folding the top over 90 degrees.

I was asked to make some quick stencils for Ape Index , given their limited use and number of variations simple card seemed to be the way forward. I ended up doing 16 different designs in the end (from supplied artwork) and I really did manage to do them quickly, I took them up to the unit the same day because I knew they had the 'clash of the titans' on at the weekend. I'm pleased I bagged the cut outs too because they also got used in the artwork creation process.

Duncan needed some more knife boxes for his lovely kitchen knives, this time he also requested that I engrave some care instructions onto the same material. The trouble with engraving is that it just doesn't show up very clearly on wood materials, the burn residue that collects in the engraving also wears off over time and the writing can fade. I made these three samplers to demonstrate the different possible techniques (and clearly should have arranged them left to right). On the right is the standard engraving. Despite having a sensible amount of power applied to give some depth you can see that the text is barely legible. The middle sampler is a standard font that is outlined with a low power cut. Low power cuts are great for line work, the burnt material is very black and is sits in a very fine channel on the material so it doesn't wear out over time (at least not so quickly). The trouble with a standard font is that the laser outlines both sides; imagine an

This much larger dodge viper logo was painted metallic and the letters picked out in black to stand out. This one was mounted directly to the wall as a piece of art.

Pick a nice font, get some sliced wood from hobbycraft and make a bunch of place names, should be super simple right? This kind of work was always a bit of a pain with the leetro controller but upgrading to the ruida and lightburn  actually made it much simpler than before. On the old controller, all jobs had the top right hand corner as the origin. On a project like this with the different length names and the different sized slices there was always a lot of faffing to ensure that the name is roughly in the centre and even then it was a bit hit and miss. The lightburn software lets you easily select the origin point with a single click and you can change it with every job. In this case I simply moved the origin to the centre of the name and then moved the centre of the wood directly under the laser head. Names easily centralised every time. In fact lightburn makes it so easy to change the origin I now move it around all the time. It's a lot easier to fit in with the s

These dodge vipers were made for a american car themed teenager bedroom. The vipers were sprayed metallic and affixed to the cupboard to act as door handles.

I believe these letters were destined to go a wedding reception and form part of a post box for well wishes. It's a simple mdf letter job but it becomes vaguely interesting when you send the cut out as well. This secures the letters for postage so you know they won't be damaged when they get to the other end but also it allows the letters to be spaced out perfectly when they get attached to the final item. Nothing says poor quality like not having the letters in a straight line.