Surface Design Project: Laser Cutting the Pattern

 

Due to a lack of time, my first pattern was unsuccessful. It was great practice for the few moments I had, but I really wanted to go in and create something more refined. I aimed to create an item I had a bit of a personal connection with.

Here is a laser-cut of my Punjabi Phulkari design. It turned out perfectly! Before it got to this stage, it had to go through the following steps:

First, I had to change my initial Phulkari pattern and create something a little more cohesive. I wanted to have a uniform piece that would look beautiful if it was also set into a mosaic. Here is what it looked like after I changed the pattern and hatching:

Before taking this to the laser cutter, this pattern had to still undergo a few changes. I focused on what I wanted the edges to look like and decided that the chevrons on the outside of the above pattern didn't fit well. The centre of the pattern also required some more attention and refinement, so I made the appropriate changes and developed the pattern into this:

Here is my pattern hatched with grayscale, as per my preference

The curves of my pattern

Here is the pattern with highlighted cut lines

I was curious to see if the laser cutter would be able to accurately cut out some of the curved parts of my paisleys - Bryan mentioned that as long as the curve is 1mm the laser cutter will have no issues. 

Now that the pattern has been prepared, it's off to the ThingTank to play with some lasers!

I was really pleased with how the final pattern turned out. There are a few charred areas, but that was due to the type of wood that was used (I believe it was balsam). My favorite feature of this are the black areas - the colours came through with such a rich quality of black.

If I were to re-do this pattern, I would definitely add more paisleys of varying sizes and gradients and focus on more of the finer details, as the laser cutter did a fine good job of creating them.

~fin~