Thinking Out of the Box

Vinyl Cutting 

Using the text tool I created a text box and and typed 'Duffy' into the box with my selected font, Embassy BT. I then adjusted the sizing of the text box to make the sticker smaller. Using the fill tool I filled the letters with a light blue color to ensure that the letters will cut the way I desire before removing the fill before cutting. 

The glittery vinyl I selected is then put on a cutting mat with its corners aligned with the 5 inch length and 3 inch width marks. The smoother tool helped secure the vinyl to the cutting map by removing all air bubbles between the vinyl and mat. The arrows on the mat are aligned with the lines on the cutter and the mat is then loaded to the cutter. 

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After threading and transferring the sticker, the final product is stuck to my cardboard box. The Embassy BT font separates the letter 'D' from 'uffy' and subsequently made the transferring the sticker to the box more difficult. Despite this, the transfer tape allowed for an easier application of the sticker to the box. 

The original digital design of the 'Duffy' sticker was 11.517 x 5 inches and the sticker was too large to fit onto the desired cardboard box. By dragging the bottom right corner of the sticker towards the top left corner, I resized the sticker to 5 x 3 inches where it was aligned to the graph of Silhouette Studios to allow it to be easier to get an appropriately sized vinyl paper for cutting. 


While threading my silver glitter vinyl sticker, the material was not threading easily as the vinyl material was thicker than the default glitter vinyl settings allocated for and, therefore, the sticker was not cut all the way through. To resolve this, I increased the cut pressure and cut the sticker once more. There was no more silver glitter vinyl so I instead used blue glitter vinyl.

NIKE Logo Vinyl Cutting 

In Silhouette Studios I traced and outlined the NIKE logo and then separated the image from the outline to get the digital design pictured to the left. The design is resized to 2 x 2 inches and is in the upper left corner of the design graph. 

I aligned a square of matte black vinyl with the squares on the cutting mat and removed all bubbles and secured the vinyl to the mat with the smoother tool. Once the vinyl was prepared, I aligned the side of the cutting mat with the blue line on the vinyl cutter and pressed 'load' and then 'start job' on the vinyl cutter screen. 

After unloading the cut vinyl, I remove the vinyl from the mat and thread the vinyl around the logo. Using a sheet of transfer tape slightly larger in size than the logo sticker I transfer the NIKE logo sticker to the inside of a cardboard box.

The NIKE logo sticker's digital design Is slightly larger than the final physical product as I desired to make a smaller sticker that would fit neatly in the corner of the cardboard box that I laser cut. A problem that occurred while making this sticker was that the transfer tape I had originally planned to use for the sticker was not adhering to the vinyl. To solve this issue I fetched a different piece of transfer tape that properly stuck and transferred the sticker to the cardboard box.

Large Epilog Laser Cutting

The engraved and vectored box Is cut on the large Epilog Laser with the cardboard material saved settings. The vector and engraved hairline lines In the design are split by different colors, and the vector cuts are set to 40% frequency and engraving cuts to 100% frequency.

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The cardboard box has vectoring on the bottom rectangle where the 3.8mm thick cardboard folds. Starting with the two half-circle end pieces, hot glue is put on the touching parts of the end pieces to connect them and held by masking tape until the glue dries. After the half-circle pieces are attached by dry, hot glue, the tape is removed and the remaining end pieces are secured to the box with hot glue and secured by tape until the glue dries.

Final Product

Corner

 

Side

 

Inside

The digital design and physical product did not have any differences. A problem that occurred while gluing the box together was that the end pieces of the box were not lying flush against one another but rather making good contact at the top rim of the box and moving future away from one another the farther down the cardboard traveled. To resolve this issue, I rested the tip of the hot glue gun against the already-dried glue to warm It back up and make the cardboard ends more malleable. I then applied pressure to both sides of the base of the cardboard pieces so that they dried flush with one another.

Large Epilog Workflow

1. Turn on the Epilog Laser's ventilation and then the on switch for the laser

2. Make sure your file is correctly uploaded into the enjproj folder and Is In .svg formatting

3. Download the file to the computer and then Import It Into CorelDraw

4. Place your selected piece of cardboard In the bed of the laser cutter

5. Drag your design over the cardboard on the computer and set the lines to either engraving or vectoring 

6. Click the print button in CorelDraw and then in the print tab click the again button 

6. On the laser cutter screen, click the fourth icon on the bottom and move the laser to the general area you are going to cut with the joystick 

7. Click the auto focus button

8. Select your design on the laser cutter's screen

9. Click the print button

10. Start a time lapse recording of the cut

11. Watch the cut and make sure It Is proceeding safely  

12. Once design has finished, check that the cardboard is cut all the way through

13. If the cardboard is not cut all the way through, repeat only the engraving cut again 

Small Epilog Laser Cutting

The Image to the left shows the soon-to-be tabbed box design in Inkscape. The page size Is set to 20.0" x 16.0" and the paper Is displayed as a grid. In the preference settings all dimensions are set to Inches. The shapes that have a flat side are the side pieces of the box and use nominal dimensions of 2.0" x 3.0" and 2.0" x 4.0". The other shape shown Is the bottom of the box which has 3.5" x 4.0" dimensions. The piece's 0.25 inch tabs are created using the path and then union tools and the 0.25 Inch slots are created using the path and then difference tools. The lines of the pieces are set to hairline In the color red with no fill color.

Time Lapse Cut

The design Is saved as a .svg file In Inkscape and then sent to print on the small Epilog Laser with 0.3 inch thick cardboard material engraving settings of 300 resolution, 100.0% speed, and 100.0% power. 

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Final Product

The cardboard pieces are then hot glued together and held In place with tape until they fully dry.

The digital design of the tabbed box and the physical product did not have any differences from one another. A problem that I encountered while changing the digital design's lines to hairline In Inkscape was that the computer's mouse was malfunctioning and would not change to the select tool. After troubleshooting with my teacher Mrs. Morrow we found that I could control click each Individual side of the box and change the lines to hairline one side at a time. After tedious selecting, all of the lines were changed to hairline successfully.

Small Epilog Workflow