Laser Personalized Ornaments

[kmmcrafts]

The whole reason for buying my laser was that I got a lot of request for personalized ornaments.. as in adding names, dates, company names etc. etc. to existing designs I was selling. I did as much as I could but as everyone knows the more holes the weaker the wood and doing text with scroll saws ( especially very small text ) is somewhat tough to do.. especially for those that want a lot of text added.. Anyway I used to turn away a whole lot of work because of too much text or many various reasons. 

My original intention was to scroll saw the custom ornaments ahead as blanks and have the added space for laser engraving. This proved to be complicated and almost just as time consuming as scrolling each individual ornament trying to line up the correct spot to engrave etc. I found myself messing up a quite a few ornament blanks thus throwing out a lot of hard work that was otherwise a good hand cut ornament blank. SO I finally just broke down and did away with the handmade ( scroll sawn ) ornament with the custom request.. I make certain my customer knows that I have a machine that makes the ornament from start to finish. Honestly.. I have yet to see a customer that really cared HOW the item was made.. they just see the design / ornament and see a perfect themed gift for that special person they know..

Below is a couple samples of what I make and how I design the custom made spot for the engraved part. I crossed out the name for privacy reasons on the one ornament shown.. The other customer just reached out asking about adding text the the target practice themed ornament.. I made one for her and she liked it so much she asked for several more names etc. for friends.. I can see the personalization of various ornaments being a big hit.. I do not advertise at all about custom laser engraving etc.. but I get a crap load of customer request every year... The time from turning on the laser to a finished engrave and cut out ornament is about 6 minutes. 

Also adding the ability to laser a photo ornament has been growing very popular. I did a video of one on TikTok that I made for my son as he just got a new to him Cummins Dodge truck.. Wish he would sell one of the other 4 he has, my yard looking like a car lot.. between my to boys cars.. LOL 

https://www.tiktok.com/@kevskrafts/video/7025232222143778054?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1

After showing this on TikTok I am flooded with request, LOL 

Anyone here on TikTok? 

[rjweb]

They look great, so what you are saying is that is all done with a laser, cut and lettered ? How thick is the wood? RJ 

[kmmcrafts]

5 minutes ago, rjweb said:

They look great, so what you are saying is that is all done with a laser, cut and lettered ? How thick is the wood? RJ 

Yes done completely with the laser.. Wood is 1/8 BBply.. I have cut 1/4 ply and solid wood with one pass with it but most times it requires me to cut it two passes meaning having to cut it twice to cut all the way through. 

 

[rjweb]

This laser is the one hooked up with your CNC correct, not just any k40, thx for the info, RJ 

[kmmcrafts]

No this is my K40 laser.. The one for the CNC is a very low power 2 watt diode laser which is only good for engraving. That one has a working 24 x 24 working area and is open ended so I could tile the project and do 24 x indefinite length.. It's just low powered and in my opinion hardly worth the down time from carving to set it up and run the laser on it.. The K40 is probably 5 - 8 times or more faster.. plus will cut projects.. My K40 is just a cheapy from eBay that I believe I paid $340 shipped for.. The larger ones I'm looking at getting start at around $1700 and depending on the format size and bells and whistles can go way up around maybe $8-9000.. If you was looking to get a laser I recommend purchasing through Omtech.. the smaller 40watt are the same as the K40 I have but they are gone through by Omtech and have a better out of the box more reliable machine than just going to eBay and taking a chance on what you get.. You might have to do a lot of work to get the cheaper ones to work right..   

[rjweb]

Thx Kevin I didn’t realize that it was one of K40 lasers, I will check out your recommendation, RJ 

[OCtoolguy]

I'm totally ignorant here but I was wondering why your pieces don't have a "burned" edge look?

[kmmcrafts]

6 hours ago, OCtoolguy said:

I'm totally ignorant here but I was wondering why your pieces don't have a "burned" edge look?

The edges are burnt, but kinda hard to see in these photos with the black background. 

Most laser cut stuff you see from others has a yellowish stain around the edges too.. That's somewhat because of needing a better air assist blower and also sometimes not having the right temp / speed setting.. but that said sometimes it's not avoidable too.. For me.. I engrave pretty deep.. and then sand the ornaments face and back to get rid of the stained edges that they get on the face and back. Most all laser stuff on etsy looks as though they do not sand it and just leave it however it is straight out of the machine. 

Something I don't really like is the campfire smell.. so instead of my normal quick dip in Danish oil, I end up spraying a top coat on to seal and mask the smell.. Danish oil doesn't quite get it like the top coat finishes do. I like the quick drying water based poly best as it doesn't have strong fumes when spraying it inside the shop and dries really quick.