Since I finally have photo of my laser engraved ring, I can finally talk about laser technology introductory tasks I had during the first week of the project. I won't talk about laser scanning, cause I don't have any pictures from that and laser welding - mainly because I haven't finished that task yet.

To start off - laser cutting is a technology allowing you to cut material - mainly sheets of plastics, wood, textiles and metals - according to your design. It allows fairly big precision, but there are some rules to remember. Laser recognizes lines depending on colour. Red is for cutting, black for raster and blue for engraving - at least that's how our school laser works. For that task we were to design Christmas decoration for cutting in clear perspex - either flat or 3D one. I decided straight away to design a snowflake in Rhino. Below, the last one on the right is my final file ready for cutting.

And below my lovely snowflake - it was good thing that I designed with consideration for hanging, as the slot for some reason came out too big. Thankfully, pretty blue ribbon sorted everything out!

 For laser sintering we were to design singular form in T-splines (which I like slightly better, but not enough to leave ArtCam). Direct metal sintering is slightly similar to printing, in how it works layer by layer - the difference is, you can work directly in metal, and instead of nozzle heating up plastic to layer up, here the machine spreads layer of powder (for example gold) and laser traces the shape of your design melting powder to form solid form. And it repeats and repeats until whole product is created - it's quite a long process, especially if the piece is large or complex. It allows you to create forms you couldn't do easily with casting, as well as make chains or bracelets as you can design links already joined - as long as you leave some space for the powder to be blown away, at least. The thing to remember is - the finish is not as good as with casting, so with more complex forms you might not be able to polish fully. The last 3 images from bottom right is my tiny model sintered in nylon by Digits 2 Widgets - London based company.

 Last but not least - laser engraving task was to design pattern for ring using Coral Draw, buy or make silver, flat ring and take it to laser engraving company - Geti (they are located in Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham). Laser engraving is pretty much engraving with laser - you can either engrave 3D form or 2D flat engraving which is what we were doing. My design was magpies - because they are one of my favourite birds. I'm very happy with my ring - the level of detail one can achieve with laser engraving is incredible!