Bruins Marble Cheese Plate
A novelty cheese platter in the style of a Boston Bruins Hockey Puck.
Required Resources: 3 hours, $70
Size: 9" x 9" x 1"
Materials: Marble Slab
Finish: Laser Etched
Tools: Water Jet, Laser Cutter
New Techniques:
Laser Etching Marble: I had used the water jet to cut marble in the past but decided I wanted something different than a gloss finish. I sketched up a Boston Bruin's logo in SolidWorks and set up a cut file on the laser cutter software. It took have a dozen test etchings on a piece of scrap to get the settings right (there were no presets loaded on to Laser Link... bummer), but I finally found the right combo of speed, power and focal height to get a good etched finish. After figuring out the settings, I broke out a bunch of the other marble cheese boards I had previously made and embellished them as well.
Lessons Learned:
Test Twice, Etch Cut Once: When cutting/etching a new material on the laser cutter it is imperative to perform a round of tests to determine the right combination of power, speed and focal height. In the past my experience had been limited to etching woods and plastics, so I had no idea where to even start on the marble. I base lined off the etch settings for a dense hardwood (walnut) . The settings were way off, it barely made a mark on the marble. Next I doubled the power and halved the head speed. TOO MUCH! The laser engraving was too deep and created grooves along the raster passes. The next adjustment was focal height which I moved up to ~0.5". This spread out the energy of the laser and eliminated the existence of the raster grooves. Five trials later, I finally hit the right combo, creating a subtle but visible etching on the gloss surface of the marble.