Laser Cut Earring Tree

This project was inspired by custom3dstuff's Jewelry Display Tree on Thingiverse.

Learning Outcomes

We hope that today's experience will provide

• • exposure to Inkscape

  • exposure to paths and path nodes

  • a sample "2D to 3D" design concept

Download Template

Use the Download Arrow to download Earring Tree Template to the Desktop.

Our template is

• • a work area of 7" x 4.5" inches

  • two halves of a tree

  • each half has a slot measuring .11" wide (the thickness of our acrylic) and 2" long

 The tree in this project was drawn using the line/bezier tool. Come back during Open Shop to create a standing design of any shape using slots -- the important thing about slots is they need to be as wide as your material is (in this case, our acrylic is 1/8th of an inch, or 3mm).

Open Template in Inkscape

The trees are simply designed, Avoid resizing the tree in any way that affects the slots. Remember, the slots are sized at 1/8", .11", or 3mm, so the pieces can slide together.

Turn on the Path Node Tool by clicking on the icon, and activate the nodes of one tree. With the Path Node Tool, you can

• • add points to create bends in the branches

  • round the branches

  • expand the trunk

Add Earring Spacers

This is an earring tree, so we need to add earring spacers. You can use single holes or pairs. A circle of about .1" should be large enough.

Vector Cut Stroke-Style

Let's check our stroke style. Make sure everything, both halves of the tree and all of the earring holes, are selected, by going to Edit>Select All. Now go to Object>Fill and Stroke. The Maker Lab uses the following settings for vector cuts: No Fill, Stroke Color: Red, Stroke-Style: 0.003 inches.

Save your file

Save your file in the default SVG format and give it your name.

Cut Time

We will now collect files for cutting!

Survey

Surveys are here: https://sites.google.com/site/cplmakerlab/surveys