Wedding Plaque with stand

My sister-in-law is getting married in January and I was tasked with making some wedding stuff (this is in Taiwan). The main thing asked for was a wedding plaque that the guests could sign. Since this then bloomed into a huge wedding (500 guests!) it was decided to make 2 plaques and display stands.

The first thing was to make a small scale prototype to experiment with laser settings and the general design, so off to Michaels to buy some basswood bits to experiment with for the engrave settings and staining (kona).

First prototype, this is the one they like the best and actually the most simple as they were not swayed by my arguments of “I have a laser… I can make this super fancy!”

From this we went to the larger scale, insert is the hardwood maple. Did 5 coats of a satin polyurethane over the top after testing on the prototype. The engrave required some touch-up as the glue lines (not present in the prototype which is 1 piece) did not burn out the same.

From this we realized a bigger one was needed.

We also wanted a stand that would display this for their house later. Digging around on Thingiverse I found this one as a laptop stand, resized it to fit the correct thickness, and cut in PG Thick Maple Plywood (which is a material I really like the look of). But the angle ended up being to low, but I really like the look of it so we will be using this as a laptop stand or gifting it.

So starting with that file I heavily reworked it and cut the sides out of PG draftboard (per my wife’s request) with the center out of the PG Plywood and the slots resized to work with the new material. I also added in the personal decorative elements to personalize it.

With larger plaque on stand.

All in all I probably way overdid this project, but it was a lot of fun figuring out all the different bits.

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Wow, it’s beautiful! How do the guests sign it? With paint markers?

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Nice, you might want to double check the date format. I am not 100% but I think they put the day first, month second, then year

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It is correct. I asked my wife several times to make sure the names and dates were right.

As an aside Taiwan has some weird “Americanisms” due to historical reasons (e.g., they drive on the same side of the road, use the same voltage and plugs, and drink rootbeer).

@cynd11
Yes we will be using metallic markers but regular sharpie does work (tested on the prototype).

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I really like the little details. Thanks for sharing.

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They will appreciate all your efforts!

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I can’t image how stunning this will be when it’s covered with metallic marker signatures!

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That will be a special treasure. Great job! :grinning:

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