Okay, so, we completed the powder filling of this sign with some minor flaws but are still waaay happier with it than anything we did yesterday. Cameron still needs to cut it out but we are calling it a day. He’s going to do a test cut on 1/2” plywood because he hasn’t yet cut anything that thick, then he’ll cut this out and then I’ll apply Polycrylic to it and some sisal twine and ship it out. Im worry about the shadows; we don’t want to move it until the perimeter cut is made. I’ll post a photo here when it’s 100% complete.

We have learned a LOT this weekend. Thanks again to Steve Makes Everything on YouTube for some great advice. I don’t know if we will attempt the hunt for the mythical ideal paint melting settings for our laser because I suspect they’re going to vary in relation to wood species and the depth of the engraving. We are also finding that the depth of the engraving varies a good bit within the same burn. Im curious about that because while we had one working hypothesis at 1% power, we’ve been at 80% power today vacillating between 250-400 mms for speed depending on what we were doing, so it was close to full blast on the wattage and we still had more variation than I expected. Perhaps some of it is attributable to the layers of wood and glue in the plywood; I doubt that those layers are applied with perfect evenness. If anyone has any experience with why we might be seeing some variability in depth I’d love to hear about it.

I hope everyone is breathing easier, especially our Canadian friends, and has enjoyed a reprieve from the smokey air. As always, thanks for being a part of our journey.