Some architect/artists I know came to a Laser Night event and wanted to know if it was possible to zap a hub for a decorative space frame they were designing. A lot of iterations later (and no, acrylic is not a suitable material) there the pieces are. I charged them $10 a sheet for cutting plus I get to keep the offcuts
The 13-year-old did most of the design work (there’s a snap-together setup for the side pieces) and I gotta say delrin is a really amazing material to work with. You can break it if you really insist, but 1/8" is about 10x overbuild for what they’re doing.
I have looked at this and looked at this and still I got nuttin’.
Imagination is the first thing to go I reckon.
What does a zapped hub look like when no one is watching?
I don’t want to show the design in detail before the installation is opened (which is in a month or so). Basically a space frame is a lattice of interconnected trusses, with a bunch of beams/joists/columns (depending on your orientation) and hubs where the long skinny pieces meet. When they work, space frames are much lighter and stronger than equivalent conventional construction. When they don’t work, they’re really spectacular in a different way.
