Finally there’s a laser cutting option with some high contrast.
This is the two-color (orange on white) acrylic material from the Ponoko fabrication service which is currently available in 1.5mm thickness.
For those of you who are familiar with acrylic sheet as a design material; you know it is usually available in opaque to transparent varieties and in many different colors and thicknesses. However, multiple layers of different colors are required in order to fabricate a simple object with some contrast and definition. I’ve had a zipper pull project in mind for a long time which needs that kind of contrast but is just not economical to fabricate from multiple pieces that require assembly/gluing. Thus, this new material was chosen as a first-run test because it has a thin colorful layer on top of a plain white surface. You can see all the specs for this acrylic here: https://www.ponoko.com/make-and-sell/show-material/640-acrylic-two-color-orange-on-white#main-image
So here it is.
The process is simple, the thin white lines are line-engraved and the thicker lines are area-engraved to reveal the plain white layer below. The rest are cuts all the way through. Yes, the design is a Stunt/Trick Kite which is another passion of mine…..carbon fiber, ripstop nylon and wind; what’s not to like? So these zipper pulls where designed for my kite bag and backpack 😀
Design Notes
The largest of the trio is 60mm wingspan and the rest are 50mm & 30mm. After the laser cutting is done, a protective paper layer needs to be removed to reveal the surface of the material which is known as weeding. Once all the weeding is done, the color surface needs to be polished as it has a dull/hazy appearance as seen in the kite on the left. The top & right kites have been polished with a microfiber cloth which adds a few minutes to fabrication time but reveals a semi-matte finish. Some of the orange color did rub off on the cloth, but polishing did not go through to the white base layer on any of the 20 pieces on my test sheet.
There where attempts to bend this material over a rough wood form as well, but the 1.5mm thickness proved hard to control compared to using a hot wire setup. The lines might become warped as well. This might be revisited in the future.
Summary
The outer edges have some burn marks which where left for reference but will be removed with some 320 grit sandpaper which will also remove the ridges from the laser cutting process. Bare in mind that the resolution is relative to the small scale of these objects. This material is more expensive than the other thicker 3mm acrylic sheets available but is a fairly easy way to achieve contrast without any gluing of separate pieces.
The orange color is more akin to redish-orange than the Flouro Orange, Orange and Orange Tint sheets available in 3mm thickness. This was OK for the zipper pulls but an orange color with a little more yellow would be great too. Another thing designers need to be aware of is that the plain contrast of the white side behind the two color side can look unfinished at times. I recommend putting a logo or customized writing there.
-8th