MSRaynsford

A lot of work has been done to use a wax infill on engraved items to provide a high colour contrast. For this cat image I achieved the same effect using acrylic paint instead. The process is relatively simple, the acrylic was engraved and cut with the protective layer still on the sheet. The engraving was done through the cover which left some texture in the dent. The whole thing was painted black afterwards and when the paint had dried I peeled off the protective layer, essentially making my own stencil for the item I had just cut. It's a rather effective technique I'm sure you'll agree. ( svg here )

My web stores have been down for some time while I've been working on other projects but I'm finally bringing out some new products (and old ones back up to speed). I've been working on a lot of game trays for the different board games we play. These Caverna  trays hold all the buildings in their appropriate places making it quick and easy to set up the game. Next step is to rejig my older meeple trays to better fit the box. You can now purchase them through Etsy if you so desire.

I made a number of OpenSCAD scripts for parametrically generating boxes using the living hinges. The scripts are capable of modelling the boxes as flat pieces or assembled items and then able to export them as 2 dimensional drawings suitable for laser cutting. You can find the scripts here on github   These boxes were designed as sample models to coincide with the launch of our new vanillabox lasercutter , which hopefully explains why this blog has been a little empty over the last month.

The vanillabox laser cutter is finally ready and we've opened up for ordering,  It's a project we've been working on for a very long time and it's consumed pretty much all of the last month but we're proud to have a full metal vanillabox laser cutter and we're currently demonstrating it at the UK Maker Faire this weekend. If you would like more information then head over to the website and check it out. https://vanillabox.myshopify.com/

I've seen a couple of wireframe lamp designs recently, they all cleverly fit into an illuminated base so you can easily change the artwork over. This was just a simple case of finding a wireframe render of a dinosaur and engraving it onto perspex. With a bit more effort I could have rendered my own wireframe from any 3D model giving this style of light lots of possibilities. ( svg here )

Due to sudden interest I've just made these available on my Etsy store  I'm also able to supply customised version of any size, colour, numbering. Just email me, msraynsford+website@gmail.com The digital version of Tigris and Euphrates keeps track of how much power each token has connected to it. I wanted to make similar counters for the physical version of the game, they needed to be the same size as the existing tokens but able to display the numbers 0-19.I've made gaming counters previously and I didn't really like the deep recess down to the numbers so I went back to the drawing board when designing these.  The top layer has to be as thin as possible so it's made from 0.8mm birch. The magnet has to be stuck into a layer underneath and the numbers have to be drawn on a ring attached to a third layer to bring it back up to the same height. The tokens were painted in the appropriate colour and then engraved lightly which left the wood slightly stained...

While looking up the original monuments for the Tigris & Euphrates game I discovered the game is due to be released again with slightly different monuments. I made a series of Aztec style monuments for the game instead. The walls for the steps were made using 0.8mm birch and the steps from 6mm poplar ( svg here )