Brief 5: CQF Laser Cutting session

I brought wooden chopping board with the intension to laser cut the Chadlington Quality Food logo into, and place the food / packaging on to take photographs for. I also wanted to produce a series of stamps which I would use to mark the brown bags act as a seal on envelopes.

This stamp was the most successful but I realised after I had finished it that if I was going to use it as a stamp, then it needed to be flipped so it was backwards! The cut out below was 8.5cm in diameter and I set the laser to cut the design 4 times over. It has come out very well, the 'L' and the 'I' of "Deli' have chipped away slightly but overall the quality of the lettering is very clear.  

I needed to do a couple of test runs on mdf that I found in the laser cutting room, because I didn't know how I the design would work and I needed to work out the size. When I originally mapped out the design on paper, I estimated that the logo should be 7.5cm in diameter but on the final board I changed it to 8.5cm so the type was clearer. 

I brought and ink pad and wanted to create a small stamp, only 3.5cm, but unfortunately the lettering was too fine and small, so it didn't really work.

Originally I wanted the logo to be engraved in the board, but then realised that in reality the doesn't happen because otherwise food can get stuck in the cut out bit, so I thought that just having the outline of the logo would work just as well.

After a couple of runs I set up chopping board, but set the laser to a very light setting so to avoid the burning / blackness around the lettering which happened in the first test. It worked well however when I took the board out I realised that when I was moving the image on the screen, one of the exterior lines fell out of place so the circle is slightly off centre. I am pleased with how it is come out and if I have time left then I will smooth the chopping board over and try again.

laser cutting photos.pdf by Emily Fairbank

I tested out the small stamp with the ink pad I brought. Considering there isn't much definition on the stamp, it came out ok. However the ink pad is too small for the larger stamp so I will have to use acrylic paint for the brown paper bags.