Laser cut Delrin tsuba

I never bothered to ask the internet whether you could cut Delrin (polyacetal plastic) with a laser cutter.  That is, until last night and the answer was YES, just be careful of the fumes.  I've been wanting to make a better looking tsuba (guard) for my bokken (wooden practice sword, in this case for Iaido).  Here are the results of my first test, I think there's an interesting future in making custom tsuba.

(a lovely customized tsuba)

(doesn't it look nice on my bokken)

(all I need is a darker stopper)

(original tsuba for comparison. Ugly, no?)

Progress on s#!t

Made a little progress on various projects.

Wired up some RGB LEDs for the Alpha sculpture, it's going to need more lights on the damn thing (quite a few more lights).

In other news I cut and planed a variety of different types of wood (fir, cedar, myrtle and purple heart) to glue up on the bokken form (see previous post).  The softer woods I'll be using first for practice so as not to screw up my limited stock of exotic wood.  I'm starting from this instructable I found a while back, modifying it by using 3 strips of wood instead of 2 and a 5/8" round over routing bit (for the blade edge).  Here is some fir on the form:

   

Still working on the router jig design, almost there.  Then I'll be cranking out bokuto, sorta.

$#!t I've been working on

It's been a while since I last posted, aside from parenting I've been chipping away at stuff.  These parts are for a scale model of a sculpture that will pay off the laser cutter.

Thankfully, most of this piece is going to end up frosted (in this case roughed up with fine grit sand paper) since the bubbles in the glue job look annoyingly ugly.  The interior will be lit with RGB LEDs and controlled by some manner of Atmel chip.

I continue to attempt to create a block lifter that's properly aligned.  This is my first attempt at 3D printed parts, my thanks to fellow EnjiGo member Duane.  Much to my dismay I set the tolerances too tightly and the parts required a lot of filing and boring before I could install the hardware (which led to a misaligned linear bearing).

Last but not least, behold a laser cut glue-form for making bokken (wooden practice long sword).  I recently started practicing Iaido (which is awesome) and have become interested in creating my own special brand of bokken.