Publish365 028: Try New Things
I'm not going to lie; I've had remarkably good luck trying new things as far as my personal business goes. I don't always hit a home run, but I'm a solid cleanup hitter that produces reliably, but every once in awhile the results are so good even I surprise myself.
I was working on a cutting board for a client who wanted two logos done in color inlay on the face of the board. I've learned a few ways to do that, but this time I wanted to try something I didn't try on past versions: I wanted to use my Glowforge to engrave the logos then fill them with resin. I was concerned about the placement of the logos and with the built in camera on my laser, I knew I would be able to get the logos right where I wanted them.
The laser did its thing, I took it out, and then brought the board up to my office where I do my resin inlay work (pro tip: Do this unless your shop is temperature controlled in the winter. Major improvements!). I mixed up one color, poured one logo, then mixed the other and poured the other.
Needless to say it was an absolute banger of a board. Here's a small preview:
I absolutely love the entire board but look how crisp that inlay is! I saw the final results after I took it out of the oil and couldn't believe I made that.
Don't get me wrong, my CNC could have done a logo like this but where the laser kills the CNC with a grin on its face is very detailed engraves, so my test was just to see if doing resin inlay on a laser (as opposed to something carved with a V-bit on the CNC) is viable and the answer, clearly is yes, and to that I say don't be afraid to try new things! This is one feature I'm going to start offering for customers now that I've done enough testing to make sure I know what I'm doing. I have one piece of equipment to buy for the shop to make these smoother, but I have a feeling once I do most of my customers are going to want something like this and I'll be happy to oblige!
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