Laser Etching a Water Bottle

I am trying to learn all things laser cutter. I have taken, the safety and basic use, the rotary, and the advanced techniques class at the TechShop http://www.techshop.ws. My wife and I signed up for back to back sessions using one of the lasers and the 4 hours flew by as we tested out different materials and skills.

Step 1:

The laser cutters at the TechShop are made by epilog and at epilog's site http://www.epiloglaser.com they have posted all sorts of useful information as well as free art files. I found this one for a water bottle http://www.epiloglaser.com/sc_water_bottle.htm which looked cool and I had an old blue water bottle I could use.

Step 2:

I used dropbox to bring up my design to the computer at the laser. Since the design was specific to a water bottle with suggested settings there was very little for me to do.
I set in the rotary attachment (removing the clamp - since the opening was small). The only design alteration was to flip it around since I had decided to place the bottle with the opening at the bottom for a smoother ride along those big orange wheels.

Step 3:

I did a test run to check the placement and then reset and go.

Step 4:

the end result is pretty impressive for an old water bottle.