Who says drink coasters have to be round?

Over the weekend I made these:

Now, making round drink coasters by cutting them out with a hand held reciprocating saw ( small jig saw type thing) is not recommended. Well…they are almost round. :grin: The fun part was burning the high voltage pattern in them (always fun to play with 9000V). I decided to paint the burned lines in gold leaf. I’ve seen a lot of bright blues and they look pretty cool too. Even thought of glow pigments in resin. I am not sure how I want to finish them. Maybe polyester resin, or maybe some clear polyurethane to preserve the veins. When I look at them, I generally like them, but I am also a perfectionist and I see all the things I would try to fix next time. This would be a lot easier with a laser cutter or CNC mill. - Rich

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That is awesome!

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Really like your work Rich. The gold does look good!
(The light flickers and dims) Nngzzzt - evil laughter from the other room…
Listening to my wife, I thought I raised hell in my shop!

I would have to try the glowing resin, just say’n.

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@joe and @printolaser thank you for your kind words. - Rich

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Looks great! And for more or less free hand sawn, pretty impressive. Once the gf is in that will be easier (and you could just engrave the patterns, but where’s the fun in that :zap:)

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Thank you. There are tedious ways of getting more or less round, mostly involving comparing and sanding a little at a time. Holding a piece with your thumb and fore finger exactly in the middle and holding it to the belt sander and having spin is fun (but not always useful). - Rich

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Creating Lichtenberg patterns can be a lot of fun but also deadly. “Big Clive” did a short piece on how to do it safely after a practitioner/artist was killed. His video was edited, at the request of the family, to remove the name and photo of the person who died.

Make Lichtenberg wood art safely

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Thank you for the post. Everyone should pay attention to safety. It is my job (that I get paid for). Check out my posts Show and Tell #979 and What You Do for a Living #80. - Rich

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Oh, coool!

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Was it anything like this?

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