My mother-in-law was using a wood coaster (much too small) to put her teapot on so I decided to engrave a cork trivet for her. She’s Italian so I used Inkscape to create a design inspired by Italian tiles. I used cork trivets from Ikea.
The darker one is an old trivet that we’ve been using for years - I figured if it didn’t work it would be no loss but it did work so I did a second print on a new piece of cork. It isn’t perfectly centred, but it’s close enough. No matter what I do, my prints are always slightly off centre.
Nice work, cool designs. Cork is satisfying because it engraves so dark with so little power.
As for alignment, I’d recommend using a corner jig. The basic process is that you draw a full- scale outline of your trivet in inkscape along with your design, then make an L- shaped path that touches two points on the circle.
You place cardboard or something cheap in the gf, load up your design and then cut the corner off so your L is right where the trivet needs to be.
Open the Glowforge, slot in the trivet so that it’s seated in the cut corner jig, turn off the L-cut and turn on the engrave. The alignment will be dead center perfect every time.
Do not trust the camera, trust your jig. Never move the art and have faith
Here’s the process illustrated:
Enjoy, jigs are a piece of cake, you’ll never look back
Thanks! I’ve made lots of other things but I’ve never got around to posting before. I do love following other people’s work, though, and I’ve learned a lot.
but it did work so I did a second print on a new piece of cork. It isn’t perfectly centred, but it’s close enough. No matter what I do, my prints are always slightly off centre.
