Finally, all the elements are in place and we’re cutting Kickstarter orders! It’s been quite a ride getting all the pieces put into place, but the first firing was successful (if not nerve-wracking…firing a laser in a homemade cutter in our shop isn’t exactly something we’ve done everyday), and we’ve already started experimenting with materials. Not only are we cutting the product, but we’re custom cutting the packaging. Viva la cardboard! We are so in love with the way the products are turning out. The colors are gorgeous and the cuts are precise. We can’t wait to get these packages in the mail!
We’ve processed brown/black, orange, yellow and magenta. We just have gray, blue, and green left!
It’s been quite the month! We have a brand new baby, Kickstarter funded, and we have a fully functioning shop. After several weeks of waiting, the electrician finally finished and we’re now ready to handle the power for the laser tube. We placed the order yesterday!
One of our wish list items if we overfunded on Kickstarter was a vinyl cutter. Stickers, signs, decals – the uses for the machine are endless. We were super excited when it arrived, and have printed off our door sign and tons of stickers. Need anything cut? Give us a call!
I cannot tell you how therapeutic weeding out unnecessary vinyl is. If you’re unduly stressed, come on over!
We’re so excited to get this laser cutter up and running. Thank you to everyone who supported us – we had an awesome Kickstarter experience because of you! We’ll be updating often here about the build and a few other pieces of equipment we can purchase with the extra funds.
See that little green line?? That means we’re 100% funded!! And we still have until this Saturday at midnight to continue raising funds. Anything we raise over our goal we also get to keep…so that means our wish list of equipment could potentially get whittled away. We’re so excited and can’t wait to see what the next few days will bring.
Thanks a million to our supporters! We can’t wait to get this cutter up and running and get you some sweet product!
Thanks to Red Orchid Productions, our Kickstarter video has gotten great feedback. Red Orchid is a husband and wife duo who are awesome at what they do. They’re organized, creative, professional and incredibly efficient – we were done with filming in a handful of hours! Tory was in news production for many years at the local station and had a lot of opportunity to hone the craft. His wife, Annie, is dubbed head storyteller and makes sure that every video says something important. Combined, they produce excellent videos that are engaging and informative. And, generally, in videos that are less than five minutes. That takes skill.
Here are some behind the scenes.
Setting up. This was before we found our shop space, so we moved everything out to a huge garage where we had enough room for all of the equipment.
If you make it to the end of the video, you can see the laser cutter drawing Pax Modern’s logo. It took a couple of tries to get the pen to hold steady. This is the first run. Too wobbly.
Second run. Perfect.
Getting the final shots.
I cannot recommend Red Orchid highly enough – working with them was stress-free and super productive. Really can’t ask for more. Check them out at www.redorchidproductions.com.
Moving the laser cutter to the new space was tricky. All of the sensitive bits had to be disassembled, reassembled and hard wired into place. Because we knew it was more than likely that we were going to move the cutter before the laser was installed, Jeff soft wired everything together so nothing would be damaged in the move.
The cutter moved and ready to be wired.
Now that the cutter was in place, we could also set up the optics. It’s a super sensitive process since this is what focuses the laser beam to cut the material.
The optics on the movable X and Y axes.
Hard wiring in the works.
At its final destination.
Now that we’ve got a great space and a cutter that’s up and running again, we just need a laser and we’re ready to make some product!
