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Theme: “Symmetry is Overrated”
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Soooo for this build I wan to make a double helix shape. Which means figuring out how to bend wood. Enter kerf bending!
Example #5 from the above link uses a honeycomb pattern of cuts to enable flexing a square piece of wood across multiple axes.
All of the different kerf bending patterns I tested
My first laser cut!!
Long story short - none of the patterns I tested did quite what I wanted. Some pieces bent a little. But overall the pieces I ended up with were too brittle, and many broke as I tested them.
Well that didn’t work.
I changed the design from two pieces of wood twisted around each other to a model of a stingray that could drape artfully over a base (still using kerf bending).
In short – that also didn’t work.
When cutting the pattern into the design, my first attempt was too small (the cuts were so close that a section of it started glowing red, and fell off), and my second attempt cracked instead of bending. So in another pivot, I abandoned kerf bending entirely.
Illustrator file of mantas + bases without kerf bending patterns
Here’s the final result:
A pair of laser-cut manta rays on stands, one larger than the other