Papercut Lightbox and frame

Stunning, and the construction details make it all the more impressive! :sunglasses::+1:

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Thanks for the kind words everyone! I’m in the midst of making another one. I’ll post when I’m done.

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For sure!

I kept the cut-off pieces and, am sure they will be of use for some small project someday …

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Lovely, my favorite light box so far. Great work!!!

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For those of us who are having trouble following along, can you either explain or point us to some key words to search for that explains the “split verticals” and “engrave cut” methods you mention? Thanks in advance. :smile:

Amazing work. Very inspirational.

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Can’t help you with the split verticals, but see this post for engrave cuts. An engrave cut is when you cut something by using the engrave settings. When working with paper and similar materials you can avoid or at least greatly minimize the smoke/char. The downside is it takes much longer.

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@caribis2 linked to my original post when I was trying to figure this out.

What I meant about cutting the verticals is…I cut the path where the vertical lines are. So essentially, my GF was cutting the vertical line up, horizontal line along the top and vertical line down, and then engraving the rest of the not straight lines.

Unfortunately, Inkscape doesn’t have a knife tool (that I am aware of) so I do that step in a more simplistic vector program - Sure Cuts A Lot. That’s what I use to cut things on my die cutter. Then I do the “stroke to path” action in Inkscape. Usually, the GF would cut along the center of the path, no matter what size your stroke is. Similarly if you told it to engrave, it would engrave the negative space in the center of your shape. By using stroke to path, you change the original stroke into two different paths. Then the GF will only engrave the former stroke. I realize this probably sounds confusing but if you click on the post above, some lovely people were kind enough to provide picture examples that are a bit easier to follow.

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I see you linked back to my original post already. Thanks!

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Also the reason that I cut the vertical lines away from the rest of the design…It takes a lot longer to engrave than cut because the laser head is travelling back and forth horizontally along the entire width of your svg and the laser just fires when it hits a spot to engrave. For a vertical line, this takes a ridiculously long time. So a single layer would take over an hour if I engraved the vertical lines but only 20-30 minutes if I cut those and engraved the rest.

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Ironically I was just looking at these…

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-Product-Paper-Cut-Led-Night-Light-Painting-3D-Shadow-Box-Frame-Led-Baby-Night-Light/32847893728.html

It gave a good description of how they are constructed and was going to start making one. But realized I need to finish a few more projects before I half start another one. :slight_smile:

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Can you provide the Etsy link for the file

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your process and especially for answering our questions.

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There you go!

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You’re welcome. If you think of any others, let me know.

Great planning to get this visually impressive/detailed/composited pieces done! You really put it together!
Rich

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I love this!! :heart_decoration: Papercraft is why I was interested in Glowforge in the first place. Awesome Totoro too, thanks for sharing the source, I didn’t know you could get this kind of file on Etsy :smiley:

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Have you considered retiring it from backing duty and adding some color?

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That could be very interesting…

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There are some really nice designs available on Etsy. If you are on Facebook, there is also a group called Papercut Light Boxes you might like. There are some really talented designers in there.

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Thats gorgeous what a great idea and design! Thanks for sharing it! :grinning:

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