Week 2: Lasers, Logos & Books

It's a short one this week; we took a long weekend to celebrate my partner's birthday.

One of my plans for the laser cutter involved making myself some brand labels! I usually sign my books by hand, but I've never had any good way to sign soft builds like bags. It's possible to buy labels, of course, but I never quite got round to it.

The laser cutter software includes a materials test feature. I'd previously used it to test the engraving on a scrap of red leather. Since the laser cutter I own is a blue light laser cutter, different colours of material will absorb light differently, so I ran a couple of tests to see how the brown reacted.

In order to run a material test, you give it a range of speeds and powers e.g. 20 - 80 % power, from 150 to 300 mm/s, and a number of rows & columns e.g. 4 x 4 to dictate how many samples you'd like. The machine then sets up the grid for you.

Results with the cutting weren't very consistent. The top-middle shows all samples cutting completely at 50% power, regardless of speed. So I ran another test, with fewer samples, to see if I could find the lowest possible cutting powere between 30 and 50%. The next sample, top-right, failed to achieve a clean cut at 50% on any speed.

I removed the laser module from its axis and checked the lens, but it looked clean, so I'm not sure where this inconsistency came from.

I ran a couple of engraving tests as well, to give me an idea of the effects I could achieve, and then set up some samples with my classic book logo.

Very low power settings could darken the surface of the leather without cutting, but the result wasn't very visible. High speed, higher power settings would vaporise the top layer of the leather and leave the cut areas pale. Eventually I decided to go for a low power at a low speed, which would remove the top layer and blacken the surface left behind.

It's possible to set the software to engrave an image and cut a vector path in the same program, so I set up a few tags at my chosen size and settings. I set the cut power to 60%, hoping to avoid the earlier inconsistencies, but even these failed to cut completely through, so I finished them off with scissors.

And of course, I finished up the book I started last week, and gave it a smart new tag.

I'm not sure I'll keep this design - there are lots of very small details. The laser cutter can achieve remarkable resolution, but the leather is very soft and I question the durability of the tiniest sections.

I'm very happy with the results so far though!

Planning to have a shop drop on the coming weekend. I had been rushing to get everything done before the birthday weekend, taking photos and writing up all the shop listings.

 But I wanted to buy new postal boxes for the laser cut earrings - small enough to be classed as a large letter, which would cut down on postage costs - and couldn't guarantee they would arrive before we left, so in the end I decided to postpone the shop drop for a week.