Valentine's Day
Key Chain
The meaning of this holiday is to remind your significant other how much you love them. One way to do this is by making them a special personalized gift. Below, we show you how to laser cut and engrave a wooden keychain for your sweetheart to make a symbol of your love that she or he can hold every day in his or her hands.
Preparation
You Will Need
- Alder wood, prefinished (3mm)
- Key-ring
Machine Used
- Speedy 360
- 80 watts
- 2" lens
Tips
- We recommend using the honeycomb cutting table for this application.
Step by step
Step 1: Graphic
Open the template found below or get creative and make your own design! If you do decide to create your own design, ensure that none of the parts are too narrow. This will cause the keychain to break easily. So, to give the project a little more stability, try connecting single letters together instead of leaving spaces between the letters (see the image). You can achieve the lightly-coloured engraving by using low power and a high Z-Offset. Download the laser parameters and give it a go!
Step 2: Laser Process
You will need to grab a piece of prefinished alder wood with a thickness of about 4mm. You are welcome to use other types of wood, but you will have to adjust the laser parameters accordingly. Then, mount the 2" lens and insert the honeycomb cutting table into your laser machine. Place the wood into the machine and create a sufficient vacuum by covering the outside surfaces of the table with scrap pieces of paper or cardboard.
Laser Parameters:
We used a Speedy 360 laser engraver with 80 watts of power. Follow these parameters:
Cutting: Power: 95% | Speed: 1.8% | Frequency: 1000 Hz | Air Assist: ON
Cutting-In: Power: 10% | Speed: 2% | Frequency: 1000 Hz | Air Assist: ON
Engraving White: Power: 18% | Speed: 60% | Frequency: 500 ppi | Air Assist: ON | Z-Offset: 2.00
Engraving Dark: Power: 50% | Speed: 60% | Frequency: 500 ppi | Air Assist: ON | Z-Offset: 2.00
Tip:
To avoid having to retype all of these parameters, you can use the JobControl files at the bottom of this page. If you need more information on importing JobControl files, click here.
Step 3: Finishing
After you've finished laser processing the wood, it may be necessary to clean the edges with a dry cloth. Then, all you need to do is attach a key chain or a ring and it's ready to go! We hope it makes your special someone smile!