The Making of a Laser Etched Epoxy Light Box Display (Part 1 of 3)

This is the first of a 3-part blog series that highlights the project build of Doug Chan’s Laser Etched Epoxy Light Box Display. Doug is a member of Maker Cube, a makerspace based in Langley, British Columbia, Canada.

Going from a screenshot to the final product

I am a huge fan of a series called Solo Levelling, a Korean manhwa (comic) that has insanely fantastic artwork for a weekly series. The artwork in the following panel has inspired me to create a dedicated piece using a variety of tools and techniques I’ve been dying to try out. The various stages of this project include laser etching, epoxy casting, woodworking, and electronics, which culminates into a beautifully fascinating piece. If you’re interested in how I made it, I will be posting a series of blogs on the process I went through.

Design and Laser Etching

Laser etching is a black and white process so the first step is to take the artwork and convert it into a monochrome image. Since this panel has so much color gradients I had to play around with it for a while to get a satisfactory silhouette.

Creating a monochrome image in Adobe Illustrator from the original art work

The best way to accomplish it for this piece I found was to use a selection marquee. Sample one pixel of color and select everything within a certain threshold range, this selection then gets converted to a path and filled in with black. Once vectorized it’s ready for laser etching.

The laser etching process was done on a 1/8” piece of acrylic that was spray painted black on one surface. By mirroring and inverting the image, the etching process will actually remove the background and leave the black paint where I need it. Everything else turns back to clear so that the next material will be visible.

The laser etching process was done on a 1/8” piece of acrylic that was spray painted black on one surface

This is a common technique we use with our laser cutter to create very clean results as the acrylic keeps the front side glossy and untouched from tool marks.

You can find Part 2 of this project build series by clicking here.

Are you interested in learning how to make things? Maker Cube offers weekly classes in welding, woodworking, 3D design and printing, laser cutting, and many other types of fabrication methods.

Are you Maker looking for your own project space? Maker Cube provides dedicated studio spaces and access to tools and resources that can take your project to the next level. Book a tour today.