2016 Christmas Ornament

[Keith Outten]

This is the ornament I am making for friends and family this year. The plans for this one were provided by Vectric as one of their free monthly projects for customers. It was a CNC Router project that I modified so I can produce them on my laser engraver.

My list of ornaments to make each year grows and grows, the first year Jackie and I used the ornaments as tags for Christmas gifts. As the years have gone by my daughters added the names of their friends, then Jackie added some people she works with at school. We then added some of the people at our bank and some nurses that I see at Walter Reed Hospital, and on and on....

I have to use a design that is very easy to produce with minimal labor involved. This one seemed to be perfect for 2016, so far the response has been great. I guess I should share the picture Vectric provided with the plans for the CNC version of the sled.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Very, very nice Keith!

[David Somers]

Very fun Keith!!!! And nicely done too! Bet folks will love these!!

Been working on a whole set of ornaments that are cut on the laser from two layers of veneer, adhered together with the grain running 90 degrees to the other layer for strength. I have 34 designs so far and been selling at craft fairs with good success. About two dozen of the designsbased on snowflakes are made by hand tracing photos of actual snowflakes into the computer (autotrace didnt work worth a darn due to low contrast, but detailed photos). The complex ones can take several days per design. I have another dozen or so VERY complex ones on the drawing boards right now but wont fool with them until Christmas is over. They all run about 2" diameter and being veneer are feather light which was a goal for me. I dislike heavy ornaments, both for the look and for weighing down branches. I have been selling them separately and in boxed sets of six. The second photo are turned ornaments I have been doing. Roughly 5 to 6" long finial tip to finial tip, and about an inch diameter on the globe. The globes are all hollow to keep the ornaments as light as possible. These have also been very popular. I will start replenishing my stock right after the holidays and then move on to ideas for upcoming fairs.

Ornaments.jpgTurned Ornament.jpg

[Frederick Skelly]

Pretty neat Keith.
I never thought of giving ornaments.

[Bert Kemp]

Nice Keith
I thought I'd try it , but the file won't open in corel would it be possible to share the laser file.
Thanks

[Bill George]

I don't think he posted a Corel file Bert. I might be a link to a gcode file I did not follow. Actually it is a VCarve file which is newer than the version I have. Its for a CNC router.

[Bert Kemp]

Right I guess the link I followed was for a vcarve, but he said he modified the file to work on a laser. I'm hoping he might share that file.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

That conversion looks great Keith. Might I offer a bit of a suggestion? Add very light vector lines down the sled (merry xmas) so it looks like boards instead of all 1 piece. I would break the lines up so they skip over the green bars.

[Bert Kemp]

maybe I can draw one from scratch doesn't look to complicated.

[Keith Outten]

Bert,

I expect you could find a vector drawing of a sled that you can use or modify to suit.
.

[Bert Kemp]

I'm just drawing one from scratch its not to hard.

Bert,

I expect you could find a vector drawing of a sled that you can use or modify to suit.
.