Laser Cut/Engraved Skateboard Rack

Cut 100% by laser, I decided to make a skateboard rack with and engrave lyrics from an album from my favorite band. The engravings on the sides are lyrics to an album by the band “Brand New” entitled “Your Favorite Weapon”.

I designed this skateboard rack for my Digital Fabrication class at the University of Florida. 

Materials: (TOTAL COST: LESS THAN 40 BUCKS, if you have access to a laser cutter...)

Pen
Paper
Wood Glue
3 screws for the wall
6 - 1/8 inch thick 18x30 inch sheet plywood, oak (Side Pieces)
2 - 1/8 inch thick 18x2 inch sheet plywood, oak (bottom center bracket)
2 - 1/8 inch thick 18x4 inch sheet plywood, oak (Title Bracket)

First step I took was writing out the lyrics onto pieces of paper as small as I could. I wrote with a the finest sharpie I could find so the scanner would pick up the writing easily. After writing out the lyrics, I scanned the pages, imported them to illustrator and used live trace/live paint to turn the scanned writing into vectors. 

I laser engraved the lyric's into 4 of the 6 pieces of the wood using the vectors I got with live paint. I then cut the sheets with a vector template I designed for two skateboards. The .ai file I have is left open for people who want to have more than 2 boards. 

After laser engraving the 4 large pieces of plywood, I then laser engraved the smaller 18x4 inch sheet with the title bar. I then used the laser cutter to score the back sides of each of the engraved pieces for glueing later. 

I then layered the wood, using wood glue to glue them together, sides were 3 ply, and the back braces are 2 ply. I glued the back braces into the cutouts left on the back side of each of the side pieces. When the glue dried I reinforced the back braces with nails through the back of it into the sides. 

Then hang it on the wall so people stop tripping over your boards!

.ai FILES
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nq0sdpcqzxzcdj9/oSQUxiIh_L/SkateboardRack