Proofgrade veneer compass rose inlay: from design to finished piece

Um…if this is design burnout, I can’t wait to see what you come up with after you give it a rest for a bit and REALLY let 'er rip!

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I am out of likes. Which is fine, because I LOVE that.
It really is a stunning piece. I’m longingly thinking, "oh, I wish I could do that…"
I have to remind myself that I can do that.
I’ll have the tools… I just need the vision, the inspiration, and the confidence to actually try complex and beautiful designs.

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A great finish for a long project. I just noticed that wood grain in two of the pizza-like parts goes in another direction, but maybe it’s just positioning. Anyway, great design!

For some reason I goofed up on two of the pieces with the grain direction when I laid it out for cutting.

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One of the things about a compass rose is since it is concentric, it collapses in on itself so the kerf shouldn’t make a difference. I think that is how I understand the geometry of the design. since all the pieces in theory have the same kerf value, you end up having all the pieces tight. That leaves the only the outer ring to make an adjustment for in engraving the inlay spot. In fact when I had it all pieced together with masking and adhesive strip covered, it was very tight. No gaps at all. It was in the final piecing together with the adhesive that the gaps started happening. Ideally you would start in the center and work your way out, but when I tried that, I couldn’t quite arrive at a correct center.

I think the best way would have been to lay it all out with the good, masked side down with a very light spray adhesive on a piece of paper. That would have enabled me to really work on the placement with a little more leeway. Then I could measure the final outside diameter and engrave the relief accordingly. Then take off the adhesive backing and flop it over in the engrave.

Now that I have the parts all designed and I have plenty of veneer, I can try it again and see how it fits. One thing about the Glowforge is that it cuts the inlay pieces out in nothing flat. Takes more time to swap material than cut the pieces.

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Good observations. On another thread there is a video of a lady laying out veneer pieces on a tacky surface before she puts the entire thing in a vacuum press. Digitalwoods I think was her tag.
Another way to help with the stack up of kerf is to tape the 1st two pieces together then pretend they are one piece. Only cut the mating surfaces, leave the rest overhang. Then cut the next part and so on.
Sounds more complicated than it is. The point is that you can get much better fits with less aggravation. The downside is that it takes more time and thought to lay up.

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Wow! that’s really very impressive. Nice work, sir.

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I haven’t read through all the comments, but is there an option in the software to dictate the direction of engraving (i.e. top-down versus bottom-up?) From my experience and the recommendations of some of my peers, engraving from the bottom of your design up to toward the top helps reduce the amount of residue that get’s trapped in the beginning section of your engraving.

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That depends on the machine. If the exhaust is in the back and the make-up air comes from the front that’s a good tip.

Some have exhausts that pull down from the center of the base (maybe the GF with filter will do this) which changes airflow.

The other thing impacting this is where the air assist blows and how many nozzles it uses. Definitely something worth doing a bit of experimentation with a GF.

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There is no option as to where to start the engraving. It defaults from bottom or front of the Glowforge and proceeds to go to the top, away from the front to the back. From everything I read and have experienced, this is how the air assist and exhaust is going to work.

That’s a good point to make about the buildup of exhaust deposits on the trailing edge of the engrave. Something that has to be addressed in post-processing.

Now that I have thought about it a bit, I will examine the sides of the engrave to see if I really did clean out well enough so that the walls/sides are clear. I did run a knife and pin around to clear up the edges so that the veneer could go in, but didn’t really double check to ensure that they were clean.

I appreciate all the feedback on this.

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No, but it does bottom-up by default. cc @tony to put that feature request in the feature hopper!

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If the air assist blows from back to front shouldn’t the default be engrave from back to front, i.e. top down? I don’t think there needs to be an option. The default should just be the direction that gives the best result unless there is a case where bottom up is better?

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from someone who doesn’t know much about lasers. Going from front of the case to the back is like a “reveal” of the piece that is being lasered. I have no idea about what is “best” from an air assist point of view.

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Well the air assist blows from behind the head forwards, so it blows resin laden smoke over the exposed part of the engrave if it goes from to front to back. When it does the the opposite it blows fumes away for the engraved part onto the masking covering the un-engraved part. It should result in a cleaner engraved surface but possibly any deposit on the masking might attenuate the beam slightly.

It’s the sort of thing I would love to experiment with but I don’t have a laser yet and a GF doesn’t seem the best platform for experimentation with its secret sauce in the cloud.

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oh…that makes sense and I can see better the issues that can arise from the direction of cutting. Thanks!

Great point! The Epilog Mini I use works best on large engrave projects with the bottom-up engrave function to reduce the amount of residue depositing. Curious to see how much post-engraving clean-up needs to happen on really detailed work.

@palmercr makes another great observation that engraving over deposit might attenuate the laser beam. In my experience, however, it doesn’t make much of a difference with the final product on the Epilog! Hope that helps folks.

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That looks fantastic, nice work!
Do you have a router?

One thought might be to use the glowforge to cut a circle as a template and use a template bit to route out the pocket. That would certainly be faster, and might even give you cleaner edges if you are careful.

I know that would not work for highly detailed pockets, but some combination of techniques might be worth experimenting with.

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Or cut the pocket out of veneer too and mount that onto MDF or plywood before sticking the bits inside.

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That’s amazing! It’s so nice to start seeing finished pieces more and more!

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Beautiful work! :slight_smile: I forgot how I landed in this topic but you’ve inspired me to try designing something with inlays.

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