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Laser Focused

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Categories: Projects and equipment; Commerce and business

Word count/read time: 463 words; 2 minutes

More adult toys! Get that S & M dungeon in order! Hardly. When does an item cross the line of being a toy to being a tool? The former is for pure enjoyment while the latter accomplishes some task unrelated to emotions or feelings.

Don't get me wrong, a new, nifty tool is a thrill. Some are intuitive like nippers or a 9/16" open end wrench. Others require serious effort before the "real" work begins. Trial and error, mistakes, hopefully nothing catastrophic. Really hot things and high velocities are nothing to take lightly.

Sometimes one tool impels you to buy another to utilize the capacities of both. Laser engravers have caught my fancy for a while; it was time to take the plunge. And where to put it in the increasingly cramped workspace? The rabbit hole was getting deeper by the minute.

I started looking at entry-level versions. As versatile as the 8" x 12" small-fry tabletop unit might be, it wasn't going to cut it, no pun intended. For $400 plus another $150 plus another this and that for a 40W peon? Nope, that's not enough to cross it off my bucket list.

It morphed into a beast with a massive work area thanks to pass-through windows. The trimmings included a separate cooling unit, four piece lens kit for engraving 0.1mm lines to full-out cutting, exhaust fan, rotary tool for bottles and cylinders, and software. Surely more goodies will follow.

Ceramic, wood, plastic, paper, metals, and more become canvases. Any picture can be rendered in black-and-white (i.e., burned) onto them, some with help from a coating applied before etching.

Since it can slice through 3/8" plexiglass, it'll make myriad jigs and shapes. Wood, leather, and similar soft materials are just as easily incised and excised. There's a lot it can do.

The expense wasn't fully justified for its immediate and intended needs, I'll agree. Did I bite off too much this time, was it too undecent? Would this require another revenue stream to offset the cost? At most it would be a small side hustle, maybe inter-mingling or incorporating some pieces at craft shows without displacing anything.

Who knows? Combining this tool with another cool tool...maybe there's something that only they can do together. If it's fancy enough I'll corner the market until others see my success.

Wait, this is not laser focus. Viable, these are whimsical could'ves and should'ves for me. Twenty lashes with a wet noodle! Still, ideas get launched this way. Dreaminess won't upset the feng shui.

Anyway, laser etching should (hopefully) replace the awesome charred logo on the wooden presentation boxes with even awesomer versions. Personalized etching would be within reach affordably and quickly. And more. See, most of this is about what it'll do for me.

Posted by M: June 1, 2023

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