paper art Archives - Page 2 of 5

Vacuum Work Hold-Down Tray

Cutting paper in the laser can be challenging. The stock has to be held down uniformly across the surface, particularly if you are cutting small pieces out entirely. Otherwise, the air assist can move the cut-out bits around and, they can interfere with other cuts.

I mostly have been using Seklema hold-down mats for this. They have a sticky gel layer that holds the paper down without transferring any residue. They work really well but, they ablate with use and, are a bit expensive.

With some laser cutters, you can get a vacuum tray that holds lightweight materials like paper down with controlled airflow. There isn’t one of those for the Glowforge. So, I made my own.

This is heavily inspired by several other vacuum trays made by other Glowforge owners in this forum thread.

I designed this in Inkscape. I used a tabbed box generator for the two main bodies: the tray and the fan box. I modified the output to break the pieces into sizes I can cut in the Glowforge and, to add additional features like holes for the fan and electronics and channels for air flow.

The tray is 1/4” thick MDF. I lined the bottom with aluminum foil for extra protection in case any stray lasering gets through. It’s probably overkill but, I sealed the seams with silicone caulk to reduce air leaks. The cutting surface is a piece of perforated stainless steel plate sandwiched in an MDF frame. That is held down to the rest of the tray using magnets, with an EVA foam gasket to help with air leaks.

The fan box is 1/8” thick MDF with press-fit holes for the power connector and switch. The fan is bolted on to the end opposite the switch. This uses a 12v fan and a standard 12v power supply. The cord hangs out through the front of the lid of the machine.

I painted all the MDF black so it would look more finished and less cobbled together.

Cutting the plate steel without access to a shear was a new adventure for me but, worked out really well.

It works great, as you can see in the 1.6-minute demo video below.

Making of the Garden Lantern Electronic Pop Up Card

Garden Lantern Origamic Architecture / Kirigami with integrated electronics

The Garden Lantern Electronic Pop Up Card I made in 2017 was one of the first big projects where I shot video documenting the build. There was a lot of footage and, I wasn’t very comfortable with editing videos at that point. The raw video just sat in a folder for a few years. I have done a bunch of build videos since then and, it occurred to me that I could probably manage to pull the old video clips together into a build narrative. I have been slowly putting that together in the last few weeks and, it is finally done!

As I noted in my original post about this project, this was inspired by and based on work done by Jie Qi and Natalie Freed. The Chibitronics Circuit Stickers project made everything a lot easier.

OA origamic architecture paper art paper engineering pop up cards pop-up card

Spirals Bookmark Redesign

Kirigrami bookmark with an interlocking pattern of organic Celtic spirals cut from a white pearlescent stock with a gold gauze ribbon tied to one end.

I designed a kirigami Spirals Bookmark last summer, mostly just taking what I did for one of my velvet embossing plates and, using that with minor changes. It was good but, there were a few spots where it was a little fragile – bits of connecting paper less than a millimeter wide.

More recently, I was inspired to redesign the spirals bookmark to make it a bit more robust. While I was at it, I made a few and, made a few of my Celtic key pattern design bookmarks and, put them all up in the new shop section. The designs are available individually, in three-packs and, in a variety pack with all three designs.

1 2 Celtic art laser paper art paper engineering

Snow Elf Manor Pop Up Card

Snow Elf Manor Origamic Architecture / Kirigami Pop Up Card

A stately origamic architecture / kirigami pop up manor for snow elves, sent for the 2021 winter holidays.

Celtic art Glowforge laser OA origamic architecture paper art paper engineering pop up cards pop-up card

Celtic Spirals Bookmarks

This kirigami Celtic spirals bookmark is a variant of the pattern I used for embossing the purple velvet for the last dice bag. The gold and the smoke blue ribbon both look really good with the ice gold stock.

Celtic art Glowforge laser paper art

Hexagonal Box

This is a quick box I designed to package one of my little drawstring bags.

You can download the plain version below to make your own hexagonal box.

Hexagonal Box Pattern

This file is for personal, non-commercial use only. Note that, by referencing these, you are agreeing to release any variations you create under identical terms.

Hexagonal Box Pattern (SVG)

Celtic art Glowforge key pattern laser paper art paper engineering

180-Degree-Open Pop Up Snowflakes

180-Degree Snowflakes Pop Up Card (2020)

I played with several variations of this snowflake design back around 2002. There were a couple 180-degree-open card variants that I liked. They were both designed to be cut as four panels that folded together to produce a card with an integrated backing. I had some limited access to a laser cutter for a couple hours to produce the cards. I ended up going with the simpler of the two designs for the production run. That one was less sensitive to smoke deposition and, less fragile.

I always wanted to play with the other design a little more and, in 2020, I finally did a run of those on my own laser.

Smoke deposition was still a challenge, especially on a stock with a pearlescent finish and a little tooth. There is almost always some trade-off with that sort of thing and expedient production. I chose not to apply all of the full repertoire of techniques for these, opting to reduce wear and tear on expensive work-holding mats and, to make production faster.

I made a short production video featuring the jig-in-place technique, dry transfer adhesive and removing stray glue.

Glowforge laser OA origamic architecture paper art paper engineering pop up cards pop-up card

Let Glue Dry Pop Up Card

Someone made a paper craft version of the “Let Glue Dry” block Laura Kampf uses in her shop awhile back. I immediately thought of making a pop up card version that could be stored flat. I did one with a simple block font but, later, made another version where I reproduced the hand lettering from a photo of Laura’s block.

I sent one of these to Laura back in March. I am going to assume that it’s okay to share these unless I hear otherwise.

Although I cut my cards on the laser, you could do this entirely by hand with a craft knife. You can even skip the white stickers. The letters could be cut from white paper and glued on. The letters could be colored in with an opaque white marker or paint.

There are two version of each design. The regular one has everything aligned in one image. That is, the score lines for the back show aligned where they should be on the front like a standard OA pattern. The jig-in-place version has the score lines for the reverse flipped for production on a sign or laser cutter.

I made my cards using the jig-in-place technique. In brief, I:

Stuck the black stock down to an adhesive mat in the Glowforge.
Disabled all operations except the score lines for the reverse side and the card outline.
Ran those two operations.
Flipped the card over in place, aligning it with the hole from which it was cut.
Placed a strip of white polyester sticker over the face of the card where the white letter would be.
Disabled the reverse scores and outline cut. Enabled the other operations
Ran the operations.
Removed the card and weeded the white polyester stickers.
Folded the finished card!

I started to make a video of the jig-in-place technique but, it is not super clear on the black stock. I will likely do a video showing how this is done when I have another design on a lighter-colored stock to run.

Files to Make Your Own

These files are for personal, non-commercial use only. Note that, by referencing these, you are agreeing to release any variations you create under identical terms.

LK Let Glue Dry Pop Up Card (Standard version)

LK Let Glue Dry Pop Up Card (Jig-in-Place version)

Block Font Let Glue Dry Pop Up Card (Standard version)

Block Font Let Glue Dry Pop Up Card (Jig-in-Place version)

Glowforge laser OA origamic architecture paper art paper engineering pop up cards pop-up card