As a super late Christmas gift, I made a Harry Potter themed bottle opener (butterbeer motif seemed like an appropriate stylistic approach) for my friend Diana. The process for making this one is very similar to the bottle opener I made before, but I got to use a laser engraver for the first time ever and I wanted to show you guys that (my second time using a laser engraver).
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| First a slab of wood was cut (using a radial arm saw) and then magnet holes were drilled into it using a CNC milling machine... two holes on the top and two holes on the bottom to mount onto the fridge and three holes on the middle bottom across to catch falling bottle caps. |
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| A butterbeer design I found on the internet. I simplified the image a little and also had it vectorized. |
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| The laser engraver! You put the piece you want to work with in the compartment and a laser will start shooting beams at it per computer instructions. The blue tube in the back sucks all the burnt laser smell (although it does not do the job very well). To test where the laser will start shooting light, a piece of cardboard was marked. Using a computer, we (my dad and I) directed where the laser would go and then instructed the laser to shoot photons at the particular location. If a hole is burned at the location where the piece of cardboard was marked, we would then designate that coordinate into something useful to us. |
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| A webcam was placed inside the laser engraver compartment to see where the laser was going. |
To the left, this is what the piece looks like after it was engraved. To the right, this is what the piece looks like after it was stained.
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| I used polyurethane to finish the block of wood. I applied maybe 5 coats? After each coat, I sanded the surface of the wood. |
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| A lathe machine was used to make magnet hole plugs. |
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| The back of the bottle opener. Notice the plugs? I haven't glued the four magnets down yet. |
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| Okay now we were facing a big problem. The back of the wooden bottle opener was not flat and so would not really stick to the fridge well. After some research, my dad discovered that we were missing a very important machine, its presence is integral to a complete workshop. This beaut is called a jointer. You feed the wood along one end and there are blades on the bottom of the surface that will chomp chomp and make your wood piece flat along one surface. So awesome! Before I had to spend so much time sanding a piece of wood, like an idiot. |
After running the piece through the jointer, the magnet hole depths were off. A drill press was used to make the holes a little bit deeper.
The four magnets were then glued down.
A transfer punch was then used to mark the location where the screws would go so the bottle opener could be attached.
Finished!!! Hooray!!!
(My apologies for recording in portrait view...)
IMAGE SOURCE: http://orig02.deviantart.net/5775/f/2012/344/0/4/04b33e00008c63d17946867a62b00f03-d3fj5pj.jpg, https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5525/12350214153_eecea52385_b.jpg
