How the Idea Came About

Things I wanted my design to revolve around:

• Furniture
• Laser cut and etched design
• Something resembling a circuit board design
• Wood

Things I needed to refine:

• What type of furniture
• What style of furniture
• The exact etching design

Initial Prototype

To help narrow down my design I created a quick prototype.

Things I Learned

• Raster etching would take far too long for a full project
• A desk was out of reach due to the laser cutter bed size
• I liked the random design look but would prefer a bit more uniformity

Deciding on Materials

The majority of my material decisions came from the laser cutter restrictions. I wanted to stay under 100$. After cost and usability research I chose the following:

• ¼” Birch Plywood – 50$
• Standard 2×4’s – 8$
• Construction Screws – 10$
• 14” Drawer Slides – 15$
• A Drawer Handle – 10$

Total – 93$

CAD Mockup

Now that I knew my material dimensions, I created a mockup on Rhino 3D.

• The original design was made to be 20”x20”x20” but due to the cutting bed size I changed it to 17”x17”x20”
• I decided on a post-modern design that would go well with the laser cut design

Cut Designs

From the 3D mockup, I now knew the plywood dimensions

• I started off with a design resembling my prototype
• I then created an array with each of the nodes
• The nodes were then connected to each other with 5 different lines
• I went through and randomly deleted a few lines for each block

Final Cut Design

The Cutting Process

• The raw materials were too big for the laser cutter so I did a lot of cutting with a table saw
• Once the plywood was to size, the laser cutter was used to etch and cut the pieces
• I vector etched everything instead of raster etching (lines instead of areas)
• The laser cutting took about an hour total

The Assembly Process

• Everything was connected with 1 ¼” inch construction screws
• The process went fairly smooth except for some warping in the wood and a screw breaking inside a 2×4
• The most time intensive part of the project was attaching the drawer

The Completed Project

• Overall, I’m very happy with how my project turned out
• The drawer works great
• Only major problem is one screw got stuck so there is a small hole on the top of the table
• Future improvements would be to stain and finish the wood