First attempts with a laser-cutter
I've joined an organisation in Cambridge called 'Makespace' who are setting up a public access 'hackspace' in Cambridge. These organisation seem to be springing up in quite a few large cities (see http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/United_Kingdom ) and are intended for people who want to build things to share the cost of owning and running tools. So for the price of a gym membership (and anyone who tells me that would do me more good is probably on the wrong forum) I can have access to tools which I would never have been able to justify buying myself.
Well today Makespace took delivery of a seriously good tool - a 60W laser cutter with a bed size of 600x900mm. I went along to see it commissioned and receive some training on how to use it. As a test I took along a small drawing of a wall in TurboCAD and we downloaded it and cut it on an odd bit of luminous acrylic left over from something else.
In its natural state it hasn't photographed very well but I am seriously impressed by it as a first attempt. The wall took just over 5 minutes to print and the software allows me to draw the different levels in different colours and then control the laser power and speed so that one colour ends up as engraving and another as cuts.
When I got home I thought I'd have an experiment and see how it might look painted. The first attempt was done by painting the wall with an matt enamel mortar colour and then trying to dry brush on a brick colour once it was dry.
The second attempt was painting a brick colour in enamel and then washing over with an acrylic mortar colour and washing it off.
So now I have to order some suitable material to cut and workout the best method to draw things up. I'd like advice from anyone who has experience on producing artwork for buildings. Specifically, what is the best way to deal with the corner joins? I have demonstrated that I can put a tiny cut which 'takes the mortar course around the corner' but am I just best to do this and us a butt joint? I can see some people have actually cut around the individual bricks at the end of the wall to produce a kind of dove-tail joint, does this really work?
Also how do people find using thin MDF versus using one of the laser cutable plastics? I know I can't use plasticard as it gives off chlorine gas when it is burned.
I'm must confess I'm rather excited about the possibilities of this bit of equipment.
David
- 19
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