Engraving Ikea wooden spoon handles

Has anyone done this? I don’t think that I need a jig since they lie flat. Any help is appreciated. TY

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Jigs are made for precise alignment of items whether or not they lie flat. My camera alignment is good enough that I can visually align most things, but your experience may be different. Should you choose not to make a jig, make certain that you set focus on each item and that the red beam lands squarely on the handle before placing your design.

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Thank you

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If I was just doing a few, I wouldn’t bother to make a jig either… But I would test my aim by zapping a bounding box for the design on masking tape. (power level something like 1-3)

You may need to sacrifice one to test your settings … But telling the machine to use a Proofgrade wood engrave setting will probably be in the right ballpark, maybe good enough.

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Whether you have an Aura, Spark, or :glowforge: will matter on settings, but in general if you can tell what kind of wood it is, search here for a setting for that, if not I’d start with the PG Basswood Hardwood setting.

The important thing is, run your job, then open the lid and look with your eyes only. If it’s too light, or you’d rather it deeper, or anything like that - shut the lid and run it again.

As long as you don’t touch anything (even if it looks wrong in the GFUI, it’ll engrave in the exact same place.

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I have a Pro and the spoons are made of solid beech.

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Thank you

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Great - a quick search got me these:

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I’ve done tons of the IKEA wooden spoons made out of beech. I use a jig every single time to ensure that the graphics are centered on both the handle and on the spoon end. I’ve done it without taking the crumb tray out and had really good results.

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Do note that thread @deirdrebeth linked is from a long time ago, so the numbers may have changed some since then. I think they should be at least a good ball-park to start in still. I will say I had great results with beech, it was a wonderful wood to work with. Good luck! :smile:

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I am glad to hear that you had great results. Would you be willing to share your jig or how you made it? I’ve never done this before and would like to get it right. Thank you!

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Thank you

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Great to hear. Thank you

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The simplest process for making a jig is to take a photo of your spoon, import it into your favorite vector editor, and simply make an outline to scale, either via trace or manually. For a simple shape like a spoon, even the manual method would only take a minute or two with some practice. Then you center your graphics on the spoon outline, and you are good to go.

You run the job in two steps: first you either score or cut the spoon outline into your jig material, and then you do a second job where you do the engraving once the spoon is in place.

Personally for something like a spoon? I would probably just do a scored outline type jig. The alignment needs to be quite good but it doesn’t have to be completely perfect, and you could easily eyeball an outline. By contrast if you do the type of jig where you cut a pocket in the shape of the spoon and then insert the spoon into the material to hold it in place your outline needs to be a lot more accurate. That much work is probably only necessary when you need to have accuracy down to within 100th of an inch or less. For something like this spoon, you can get accurate enough without doing all that work.

You can see example of how to do this in this thread:

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Thank you

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Here ya go. I am lucky enough to have snapmarks enabled on my machine, so I can re-use the jig. I’ve removed the snapmarks on this SVG as I’m assuming you don’t have snapmarks, so you’ll probably want to use cardboard or other cheap scraps to print this each time. Let me know if you need more assistance using the jig.

Spoon jig - 1 spoon

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Thank you very much. I have no idea what snapmarks are, but will try to use this.
I ordered some calipers and they will come tonight. The spoon handles are thick.
So, I upload this and cut it out on cardboard? I appreciate your help.
Mary

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Before uploading the file, open it in your graphics program and add your text or a place holder for your text/design. Upload the file to Glowforge. Cut the outline out of cardboard/cardstock or mdf and set the engrave to ignore. Make sure the material doesn’t move and remove the cut out. Place the spoon in the outline. IGNORE THE CAMERA. Set focus on the spoon and make sure that the red beam lands squarely on the material and not the jig. Again, IGNORE THE CAMERA. Set your engrave settings for the spoon. Set the cut line to ignore. Print.

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Awesome. You are very kind. Thank you.

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