Lazer Cutting a Brick Stencil
Health and Safety - The laser cutter works by burning through the chosen material meaning the finished cut may be slightly hot when finished. So be careful when taking it out.
- Laser cutter
- Computer
- Adobe Illustrator
- Measurements of bricks
- Material that will be cut
I started by measuring the brick that I wanted cut. Then, on Adobe Illustrator, I started by drawing out the the brick using the rectangle tool to the correct measurements. Knowing the thickness of the mortar, I copied and pasted the bricks and alternated them with the correct spacing between them. I made sure that the start and finish of the stencil would match up meaning I could repeatedly lay done the stencil to cover more area in bricks.
Once I had all my bricks laid out perfectly, I selected them all and grouped them meaning that the bricks would move accidentally during the next few steps. While the whole design was selected I changed the line thickness to 0.001pt as this is the thickness the laser cutter cuts at. In addition, I made all the lines red as this is what the laser registers as needing to be cut.
This file then has to be saved as a Illustrator CS2 file. First go to “file”, “save as” and “save”. Then in the option box that appears, change the version to “Illustrator CS2”, tick “create PDF compatible file” and un-tick “embedded ICC profiles” and “use compression”. Then “ok” and save the file onto a memory stick ready to take to the printer. This then has to be put onto the printing software which works out where the printer will be starting and finishing.
The first stencil I did was on a piece of plastic that was too thin and so melted and warped. The second stencil I tried worked better as I used a thicker plastic.
