Laser Cutting

Mudsock Meanderers

Published on by Phillip Drawbridge

You may have heard me talk about letterboxing before. If you haven’t and don’t know what it is, here’s a quick run down (via Wikipedia) –

letterboxing-014
Me stamping a log book.

Letterboxing is an outdoor hobby that combines elements of orienteering, art, and puzzle solving. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly accessible places (like parks) and distribute clues to finding the box in printed catalogs, on one of several web sites, or by word of mouth.

Individual letterboxes contain a notebook and a rubber stamp, preferably hand carved or custom made.

Finders make an imprint of the letterbox’s stamp in their personal notebook, and leave an impression of their personal signature stamp on the letterbox’s “visitors’ book” or “logbook” — as proof of having found the box and letting other letterboxers know who has visited. Many letterboxers keep careful track of their “find count”.

We’ve found quite a few Letterboxes, both over here and over there and I even placed one in Kent about 10 years ago.

Gale and I are off to Britannia soon, to Dartmoor (among other places), the birthplace of Letterboxing.  We wanted a unique stamp, but carving is tricky and you have to be pretty good to get a decent stamp.

There it is!
Gale pointing to the location of a letterbox.

But guess what?  Gale has a 30watt laser engraver sitting in our spare bedroom. So she ordered some laser engravable rubber and dumped it on my desk with a “work this out” kind of look.

A few Googles later and a quick read of the laser manual and I powered up Corel Draw and came up with a design.
Sent it to the laser and then sat and watched a rubber stamp appear before my eyes.

We’re pretty pleased with the result and once we’ve finalized the design (Gale wants more stars) we will be ready to go find us some Letterboxes.

If you have any interest in finding Letterboxes near you, check out AtlasQuest which is not great looking, but has a lot of information on how to start.

stamp
Mudsock Meanderers was Gale’s creation. The Fish is in reference to our home town of Fishers and Mudsock is the original name for Fishers, clever huh?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

mudsock2
Update update: And here’s my updated stamp. This is the one I’m gonna go with. The torch and stars are the state flag for Indiana.

Laser Cut Astrological Steam Punk Clock.

Published on by Phillip Drawbridge

I made this a while ago.  It’s a simple cheap clock mechanism with five layers of laser cut clockage. Inspired by the amazing work of  Eric Freitas.

I designed the cogs in Corel Draw and then cut and engraved them on Gale’s Zing 30watt laser.  Then I spray painted each part. The cogs don’t move, but it does (or did) tell the time.   The number 3 and VII are laser cut paper.

IMG_4439

 

Close Up

Laser Cut Norman Church

Published on by Phillip Drawbridge

This morning (and some of yesterday) was spent designing and cutting (and photographing) a little Norman style church.   And yes, as far as I know Norman churches don’t have flying buttresses, but I like them.  This was designed in Corel Draw and cut on an Epilog Zing.

Norman Style Church

Next, I have to sort out the errors I saw while photographing and maybe engrave stone work and more detail.

Lasering

Published on by Phillip Drawbridge

Gale recently bought a laser engraver.   My first project was to engrave a wooden box that I keep my camera stuff in.     I used Corel Draw, which I’m really not familiar with at all and came up with a pattern to give a fake 3D looking effect.    Then tested to dial in on the settings I liked (and work out how to make the laser cut in the place I want it to cut).

When I was confident I set it running.   20 minutes later, I got this…