This is an easy project that you can adopt or adapt for your own use. I make the base materials l for a customer to add-value and sell. This posting is the end story of my process.
First, I start with 12” square 3mm (actual 2.8mm) Baltic Birch or Basswood plywood. I could have used something cheaper, but I prefer some repeatability. I then cut out the FL’s (Florida.lbrn2) using 3 boards to get 18 pieces. On the FL cutout, there is a little circle to indicate to my customer which side gets the resin. FL is obvious, but I created 13 other designs and some of them are almost symetrical. It is easy to apply the resin to the wrong side and then the cork backing will not match.
My customer adds resin with an artistic flair on the ornaments. For example, the FL in the image has actual sand on the bottom portion. That is not wood you see through the clear resin. When she adds the resin, it droops over the side and leaves lumps on the back side. She sands these off, but then she was painting the back so it looked more professional.
I had done some sticky back cork work for her in the past, and we got to talking about using that for the back. We did a test batch of backing cutouts (Florida Cork Back.lbrn2), and now all wood ornament cutouts get matching backings. It reduced her final processing from hours to minutes and made her product look really good.
The cork backings were originally cut reversed from the wood cutouts. I would cut the cork side up. When the laser got to the bottom white backing paper, it would not always burn completely through. I had to flip some over and use an xacto knife to cut the traces where the laser failed to penetrate 100%.
However, after doing about 150 of them in the past week, I decided that was enough knife work. I wondered how it would cut if I did the (white) paper side first. The laser cut the paper clean and blasted through the cork with ease. I flipped all the cork designs horizontally, so they now mirror the wood cutouts, and get 100% burn through and easy release from the scrap portion.
- Laser: Sculpfun Diode SF-A9, 40w setting. You may have to adjust the Lightburn settings for your machine.
- Cork cutting leaves a LOT of soot on the edges, much more than wood. Be prepared for some cleanup. I use a microfiber rag and wipe the edges.
- It is not too early for making the holiday season tree ornaments. If you have someone that can resin them for you, the cork backing is a real time saver.
- I gave up trying to make flea or craft market sales. I only do custom engraving now, tree ornaments, charcuterie boards, memorial plaques, and more.
Florida.lbrn2 (115.6 KB)
Florida Cork Back.lbrn2 (52.1 KB)
By the way, that scratchy looking patch is where I tried to mark the sand. Big fail, but marking wood through the resin worked.