Grape Leaf on Card Stock (Now with Embossing!)

the combo of heat from laser engraving and solvents will cause that crazing and cracking in extruded acrylic; it’s just stress cracks.

Yup. And the second one is showing no signs of stress. You have to wonder if the second de-focused pass helps anneal it in any way.

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Maybe, but you didn’t use a solvent on that one so I wouldnt think that it would crack.

I’d be curious, it is more spread out heat but it is still pretty localized overall. most people say to anneal the whole piece in an oven. And I have had it crack after flame polishing which is much less localized than even the defocused laser (how I found out about the whole thing)

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Yeah, I think I am about to buying a new toaster oven for the kitchen so the old one can anneal plastics in the shop.

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No, no, no! Your write ups are amazing! You can come back to squish paper leaves later.

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Maybe, but you’re temptin’ me… :wink:

BTW, your “if only there were more imperfections” is the whole reason I thought to do this next step. Thanks for even more inspiration.

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Wow! You just keep kickin’ it up a couple notches! That leaf looks great–what a wonderful way to add texture.

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That second acrylic leaf (the defocused one) would make a nice keychain. Or a chocolate mold (is lasered acrylic food safe?).

Better off using it to cast a positive and making a food safe silicone mold off that. Will be much easier to take the chocolate out of

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My wife had similar thoughts. She liked the mold better than the leaf.

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But the leaf is pretty awesome too. :wink:

You have opened a whole new world for my miniature work. Bless you. :wink:

hit them lightly with a heat gun? That might do the trick.

Never mind…he’s already accomplished the look. Nice job!

Now you can cast into your mold… Chocolate leaves, silicone leaves, ice leaves. Lord I love a fellow inventive person. Keep up the great work!!

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Just a heads up for anyone that comes to this great post or any other dealing with acrylic… use good ole masking tape on it to mask it. It sticks to acrylic better than anything else I have seen… even things it is made for. You will get NO lift and it comes off pretty easily when you want to get it off. Really hot water and a little scrub. :slight_smile: Will look pristine. :slight_smile:

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Not sure how I missed this the first time around, but that’s really cool, the embossing really steps it up several notches.