Laser Cut Project

I present to you my finished laser cut project!

This is the pattern I had laser cut. My prototype and samples took up more wood than I expected, but luckily, I got another half a sheet of plywood from my friend. This is why I had two smaller patterns rather than one larger one.

I think it's quite interesting to compare digital renders and prototypes to the final objects.

In terms of fabrication, I didn't encounter too many issues with this project. After all my sheets were cut, I arranged the pieces so I could see and keep track of all the parts I had and what I had to glue.

You can see that a few of my parts got a bit cut off my the edge of the sheet. I also ran into a similar problem when making my prototype and I had tried to leave more room around the edges of my good copy, but didn't quite leave enough. I had enough wood left to have these parts re-cut though.

I struggled a bit with the gluing process, specifically with lining parts up and getting them to stay while clamping them together.

This project taught me a few things. The first thing I learned is that it is nearly impossible to freehand gears, as I mentioned in a previous blog post. I also learned that the laser cutter's beam has more thickness than I had anticipated. A few of the pieces I cut were a bit loose when slotted together.

For me, the most difficult part of this project was the gluing. My pieces kept sliding around and gluing weird with the wood glue, and I was struggling to find enough small clamps at times. On my final, I ended up using wood glue for most of it, and superglue for some of the finer parts.

While I'm quite proud of how his turned out (pun intended), I'm not completely satisfied with the results. If I were to make another iteration of this, I would want to find a way to make the gears run a bit smoother. Maybe increasing the size of the moving parts would help, or giving the gears a bit more wiggle room. I think I'd also like to plan out the gears in a less random way and do some math regarding the gear ratios. I'm not super happy with the speed the smiley face turns at; I like the prototype's speed ratio better. 

- Pete