Laser Cut Tabletop Flower

Today you will use the Bezier and Shape Tools to draw a flower to create a two-piece, laser cut design that slots together.

As you design

- We are slotting two pieces of acrylic together -- if the stem is too thin, the slot will increase fragility -- so resist a too thin stem!
- In the images below, there are two different flowers provided as an example only.
  - You should create one flower first, then Duplicate the flower to make sure you don't run out of time. If you have finished your flower early, only then should you create a second, different flower.

Download and Open the Template

Download the template by Right-Clicking on the Down Arrow to the right of the file name. Select Save As, and select Desktop as the save destination.

To open the template, locate the file on the Desktop, Right-Click the file and select Inkscape.

You will see a sample file and receive a brief description of Inkscape tooks (Bezier, Circle, Square, Star/Polygon) and how to design two pieces which fit together.

Option 1: Drawing a stem with leaves (using simple geometry)

You can use familiar shapes like a rounded rectangle, and a modified circle, to create a stem with leaves, like in the example below. Once you draw a shape, to modify: select shape, Path>Object to Path, and edit paths.

Option 2: Drawing a stem with leaves (using Bezier)

The Bezier Tool can be tricky. In the example below, we used this image as a model while drawing. Clicking from point to point creates a series of straight lines. Clicking, and then click-holding, creates a curved line.

Adding flower petals (tulip or daisy examples) with simple geometry

You can create petals with the Circle Tool (draw circle, select circle, Path>Object to Path, edit paths).

For petals like the tulip, you can create one petal and use Duplicate and Object>Flip Vertically to create a symmetrical pair of petals. Duplicate again and customize a center petal.

For petals like the daisy, you can create one petal and use Duplicate, Object>Transform>Rotate (here, we used 45 degrees) to digitally rotate the petals -- of course, you can also manually rotate the petals. For each petal, you will go to Duplicate, and select Apply to rotate the petal 45 more degrees.

One shape from many

To turn the shapes into a single, solid shape, select all the parts of the flower by drawing a selection box around the parts, and go to Path>Union. If Union does not work, try ungrouping your objects (Object>Ungroup), and go to Path>Union again.

(If you have something like the shape in the center of the right flower, you can select those path nodes and simply delete them.)

Duplicate your flower

At this time, you should only have designed one flower. Use Duplicate to create a matching flower. Move it next to the first flower.

Adding the slots

We're using 1/8" acrylic, or 3mm acrylic, but that doesn't mean it is exactly 3mm all the way through. For example, 1/8" from Inventables.com declares the thickness tolerance to be "+/- 8%" which is .24 -- it may be as thin as 2.76mm, or as thick as 3.24mm.

We want to err on the side of wider slots instead of too narrow slots. If you want to pick out your acrylic in advance, you can use the digital calipers to get a more precise measurement. For this example, we're going to create slots 3.2mm wide.

Using the horizontal guide, line up one slot above the line, and the other line below the slot -- they should touch the guide.

When the slots are created, select a slot and its flower and go to Path>Difference. Repeat for the second flower.

Check Paths and Stroke-style

If you look at the image above, the bottom of the flower stems have small curves. We can use the node tool to flatten it out to create a more stable footing for the flowers.

We also need to make sure our path lines stroke-style is set to .003". When working on a design, it might be easier to view the lines if they are heavier -- but when we are ready to cut, we should return them to .003" width.

Save your file as an SVG

Create an original name for your file.

Survey

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

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse