So…did you guys know that you can skin your iPhone case with the Proofgrade veneers?
(Yeah, me either, until a couple days ago.)
(And @shell , I would love to see your cool coffee bean pattern adapted for this and included in the catalog, along with a few other “profession” related themes like engineering, or maybe some gears, or a musical theme…I think they’d be popular. I’m first in line for the coffee bean one. )
Okay, so the leather case on my iPhone was starting to look a bit worn at the edges…I had a little bit of walnut and maple PG veneer left over, and I thought…why not?
Cut the pattern once out of each of the veneers, and started fitting the puzzle pieces together. (It’s cathartic.)
Finished it up with a couple of coats of gloss Polyurethane, and now I’ve got a shiny wooden cover for my case.
(This case had a cover, so I didn’t have to mess with cutouts for the camera, but it could be adapted.)
Never underestimate the power of the long tail market. Beuatiful work. At the moment I have my iPhone case hot glued to Glowforge stand. I did some acceleration measurements and haven’t pried it off yet. Might have to make a new case.
When I posted a pic of the Founders Ruler, everyone focused on the slight wave to the engraved measuring ticks. Being the Glowforge shill that I am, I thought I would use my iPhone’s accelerometer functions to graph the the engraving action. It was pretty cool. And it worked and demonstrated that my stand on wheels does shift slightly with the raster lines. Does that transfer into material? I don’t know. But since then I put a floor pad under the Glowforge and it basically deadened the stand movement. Now any movement is transfered directly to the crumb tray. The inertia of the material then is isolated. Why magnets are great for small pieces.
But I don’t require that level of precision so I never posted it and went on to cooler things.
@Jules, since the veneer is so thin, do you have to worry about kerf? The fit of the two woods looks fantastic and is something that I am anxious to do. Thank you so much for showing us.
I’m answering out of turn, but it all depends on the level of precision you want. I engraved the letter F and did an inlay for it. Parts of the inlay are narrower than the kerf. You have to compensate for the kerf with a small piece. since it’s the surface of the material that has the widest kerf, thinner veneer actually has a bigger kerf in proportion than a thicker piece of material which at the bottom of the cut is actuallyl a smaller kerf.
I didn’t adjust for kerf with those Dave…the self-leveling varnish fills in any gaps and makes the whole surface smooth. (And i like the darker outlines around the cuts that the kerf creates.)
(You do have to sand it between coats and let the bubbles work themselves out. Standard finishing steps for that one.)
Are you meaning the F and glowforge symbol? I can’t see any edge on either one. Will you be doing a video on how to do it later on? The precision that you are achieving is fantastic.
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