Introduction: Laser Cutter Spiral Effect

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About: Mechanical Engineer, driven by learning. I usually have a few very different projects going, with the goal of learning new skills. My overall goal is to become proficient in a plethora of skills, rather than t…

Wanted to share this simple trick I tried on the laser cutter. I had a couple extra water bottles leftover from a previous project (see that one for a brief instruction on the laser settings and rotary attachment). A friend sent me a quote that she wanted me to put on a bottle for her. Only...it was a really long quote!

I decided that it would look best to have the text wrap around the bottle!

To do this, I tricked the laser into thinking that the work piece was much larger than it actually was (the real circumference of the bottle I used was around 9"). The size you choose for your canvas is going to depend on how large your text/image is, and how much you want it to wrap around the piece. I think I rotated the text somewhere between 5 and 10 degrees to get it to look the way I wanted. And that's it! worked like a charm!

I made it at Techshop using the 45W Epilog Helix and rotary attachment!

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