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Dee Gallo
07-03-2010, 2:13 PM
There is an article in the newest American Woodworker magazine about the Epilog laser. Simplistic but interesting overview of what can be done with a laser in regard to woodworking projects. Perhaps now two things will happen: 1. juried craft shows will stop discriminating against laser engraved crafts and 2. too many people will be making laser engraved crafts.

:) dee

Keith Outten
07-03-2010, 4:03 PM
Dee,

When we created the Engravers Forum I thought that woodworkers would be the next large group that would be purchasing laser engravers. I thought that it seemed to be a logical machine to add to a woodworking shop that could add considerable value to things like boxes and other specialty projects. I was a bit early but woodworkers seem to be getting on board these days.

BTW I visited your web site and was impressed by the Mah Jong tiles you create. Master level work if I have ever seen any. Incredibly beautiful...........
.

Dee Gallo
07-03-2010, 4:59 PM
Thanks for the compliment, Keith!

I recently went to a big woodworker's show and there were a TON of people using scroll saws driven by "patterns" which seemed to be a waste of time and money when you compare the laser's abilities. I got the impression that hardly anyone doing carving or sawing work can make the designs on a computer themselves. Maybe that's what holds them back, I don't know. I saw no CNC routers there.

They were fascinated by the Epilog display there, and buying the pen kits cut by a laser from someone else, but it was almost as if they could not understand how the laser knew what to do.

Maybe the two just don't mix.

cheers, dee

Lee DeRaud
07-03-2010, 5:02 PM
Perhaps now two things will happen: 1. juried craft shows will stop discriminating against laser engraved crafts and 2. too many people will be making laser engraved crafts.Based on some of the posts I've read, there's a sizable percentage of people here on this forum that think #2 has already happened.

#1...not so much. There's still a strong streak of "virtue through tedium" running through the crafts world.

Lee DeRaud
07-03-2010, 5:07 PM
When we created the Engravers Forum I thought that woodworkers would be the next large group that would be purchasing laser engravers.It was the forum title, "Laser Woodworking", that sucked me in here in 2005. If it had been called "Engravers Forum" like it is now, I probably would have skipped right over it.

(We leave as an exercise for the reader to determine whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. :cool:)

AL Ursich
07-03-2010, 10:33 PM
In 2007 and 2008 I did some Craft Shows and there were a few Scroll saw guys and they had some really GREAT stuff.... I had nothing there laser engraved but a bunch of stuff done on the CarveWright little CNC. Talking to the Scroll Saw guys and mention the "Laser" brought out the "Venom" in them... Quickly holding something up that was a 2 hour detail scroll saw fine detail.... And foaming at the mouth point out that the laser leaves "Brown Burnt Edges !!!!"...... And pointing at the scroll saw edges with no burning....

One guy in particular had scroll saw Christmas Ornaments next to me made 6 at a time. He sold them hand over fist... At the next show I started making 3D Christmas Ornaments with the CW and the guy came over to my booth after his wife had visited. He was truly honked off...... :eek:

My 3D were selling hand over fist.... The China Lead Paint was in the news.... I pushed the raw wood ornaments to be painted by kids to make memories....

2009 and 2010 were poor Craft Show years and I have moved on to different stuff. Small signs for the 2nd homes in all the developments have been a steady area.

I was at a Craft Show with a new Laser Owner and member of Sawmill Creek Memorial Day weekend. He had a great collection of Laser Cut stuff and a bunch of the Military stuff, a Laser Buzz home run.... He had a great following and I believe he did well and got a bunch of contacts. I only sold 1 sign and 1 from a followup. Things were much better in 2007 and 2008.....:D

Money has been very tight..... Now would not be the time to put a Laser Engraver on payments and feel the pressure just doing Craft Shows.... 2 Craft Shows in my area canceled the last 2 years...

So back to the reason for the Thread... A Laser Story in a Wood Working mag.... Well the first Laser Engraver I ever saw was at a Wood Working Show in Los Angles in 97.... A Epilog.... He was scanning a drivers license and burning the image into business card size 3/16 inch thick wood. I had them burn my Navy Retired ID.... It turned out GREAT and made for a few jokes with my Sony Navy Buddies.... "I was in the Navy SO LONG.... I have a wooden ID Card.....".... Then Sony got a Laser Engraver..... They made thousands of Valve Label Tags... I watched it work a few times first raster engraving all the data on a 12 x 24 sheet. Then it cut the mounting hole... Then it cut out the tags.... I was HOOKED.....

I currently have 2 Very old Epilog Lasers, a Very old 30 Watt Summit with the oldest firmware a slightly newer 20 watt Profile.

As a wood worked I have seen the ads in wood working mags for years by Epilog and the Plasma CNC guys...

I don't know too many woodworkers that have the money to get a Laser..... With Unemployment what it is, I believe Laser Makers will be spending more money trying to hook the out of work hobby woodworkers... Just like I have been seeing a TV Ad for.... FIX YOUR OWN TEETH..... A company selling "Tooth BONDO" to the out of work people..... With the Economics I even put on hold a $250.00 Dental Procedure until next month...

So the Wood Worker Story may peek some Laser Interest, I would not see it as a serious thing....

Things that I think have legs in the future Craft Shows are Acrylic Cut Kids Names and Art with LED Lighted bases.... It's the personalization of the kids names that gets the wallets to OPEN..... Time to open that Flame Polisher box..... Time will tell...

Someday I will have the 75 or 100 Watt Laser to explore the wood working side.... Until then I will stick with smaller reach projects.... Like Leather...

I just remembered that there was a Laser engraver story in the "Signs" magazine last month too....

AL

Michael Simpson Virgina
07-04-2010, 3:07 AM
Most wood workers want lasers. They drool for them. The main thing keeping them back is cost. There are very few wood woorkers willing to put out $2000 for a tool much less $16000. Because of this lasers will never bee the norm for woodworkers.


I am a avid woodworker and did not purhase my laser for this. But am now finding it usefull for cutting router templates and exotic inlays.

There are just too many tools you can buy for the kind of money it takes to get a laser. Also engraving is not even in the minds of most woodworkers. I would never think of engraving anything into one of my pieces.

John Barton
07-04-2010, 5:11 AM
There is an article in the newest American Woodworker magazine about the Epilog laser. Simplistic but interesting overview of what can be done with a laser in regard to woodworking projects. Perhaps now two things will happen: 1. juried craft shows will stop discriminating against laser engraved crafts and 2. too many people will be making laser engraved crafts.

:) dee

My thing on this is that if what's presented is really ART then it gets in. If it's just artful easily replicated items then it's a product.

We go through this type of discrimination with pool cues made with the assistance of CNC routers. People who rail against CNC embrace cues which are inlaid using pantograpghs. Never mind that the pantograpgh templates were made by a shop using a CNC router.

That said some CNC cues really do look like cut and paste jobs while others are so artful and intricate that we call them monster cues.

I have seen some really really creative artful things made using the laser. I don't know about these juried shows but if they are allowing the CNC scroll saw stuff then they should allow the laser stuff.

Mike Null
07-04-2010, 7:55 AM
First, I do not see how a juried craft show can permit laser art, at least so far as judging is concerned.

Second, I originally bought my laser thinking I could make my living serving woodworkers. I found, very quickly, woodworkers have no appreciation for the skill or the time taken to acquire the skills to operate the laser. They also have no apreciation for the cost of the machine or, for that matter, the cost of the software.

In any event, after twelve years, it is rare when I do any work for woodworkers and early on in the conversation I mention my minumum fee which generally discourages them before I have wasted a lot of time.

John Barton
07-04-2010, 8:38 AM
First, I do not see how a juried craft show can permit laser art, at least so far as judging is concerned.

Second, I originally bought my laser thinking I could make my living serving woodworkers. I found, very quickly, woodworkers have no appreciation for the skill or the time taken to acquire the skills to operate the laser. They also have no appreciation for the cost of the machine or, for that matter, the cost of the software.

In any event, after twelve years, it is rare when I do any work for woodworkers and early on in the conversation I mention my minumum fee which generally discourages them before I have wasted a lot of time.

So the bowls that were made of laser cut rings wouldn't qualify as art and not be acceptable in a craft show?

I once went to the Cherry Creek arts festival and there was a guy there who made these awesome panoramic shadowboxes ( I think that's what they are called.) They were these wooden boxes with a glass front and a wooden frame around them. The scenes depicted were of old time small town Main streets and the like. (edit: these boxes were highly detailed scenes almost like 3d paintings - nothing like what I find when googling "shadowboxes")

The scenes were created with many many layers of thin wood stacked to create the 3d effect. They were amazing. Each one costs hundreds of dollars.

The pieces could have been easily cut by laser. Every part was painted. In fact I often think about that display and promise myself to try something like it with leather.

The Cherry Creek show is or was regarded as one of the toughest shows in the US to get into.

I think maybe we have a different idea of what art is. I don't consider laser engraved commodities to be art. For example there is a company out in LA that makes a pretty good business out of putting artist's works on Moleskin notebooks and Macbooks. I wouldn't let them into an arts or crafts show even though the resulting product is often quite cool. My thought is that if people are creating something new and original using the laser then it's art. If they are taking other people's art and burning it onto some commonly available substrate then no, it's not art.

Take the guy who is doing the eggs shown here recently. When he puts common pictures on the eggs then it's not art. If he puts his own designs on the eggs then it's definitely art. :-)

I mean I can see ways to use the rotary coupled with the software controls for power and speed to come with some wild designs on eggs. But it would take a lot of thinking and trial and error to perfect the technique.

One of my friends is a glass blower. She does egg shaped paperweights which have wild patterns in them and suspended droplets. They look really cool. She told me she can churn these out in her sleep now after she figured out the technique.

I think people should focus on the object being presented and not what tools were used to make it.

What if the best sculptor in the world became a quadriplegic? What if someone gave him a computer that he could control with eye movements and that computer was hooked up to a 3d printer? Then he created his objects using a graphics program rather than a block of stone and the printer made them real.

Would his creations not be art?

Mike Null
07-04-2010, 9:53 AM
I have seen splendid examples of laser art. Many right here on SMC. But I do not think computer generated art belongs in the same arena as hand crafted items.

Mitch Andrus makes his living with computer generated laser produced pieces that I consider to be outstanding examples of laser art. There are many, many others too numerous to mention that are not less beautiful than the hand crafted pieces but they are not hand crafted and they can be easily reproduced.

John Barton
07-04-2010, 10:41 AM
First, I do not see how a juried craft show can permit laser art, at least so far as judging is concerned.

Second, I originally bought my laser thinking I could make my living serving woodworkers. I found, very quickly, woodworkers have no appreciation for the skill or the time taken to acquire the skills to operate the laser. They also have no apreciation for the cost of the machine or, for that matter, the cost of the software.

In any event, after twelve years, it is rare when I do any work for woodworkers and early on in the conversation I mention my minumum fee which generally discourages them before I have wasted a lot of time.

So the bowls that were made of laser cut rings wouldn't qualify as art and not be acceptable in a craft show?

I once went to the Cherry Creek arts festival and there was a guy there who made these awesome panoranmic shadowboxes ( I think that's what they are called.) They were these wooden boxes with a glass front and a wooden frame around them. The scenes depicted were of old time small town Main streets and the like.

The scenes were created with many many layers of thin wood stacked to create the 3d effect. They were amazing. Each one costs hundreds of dollars.

The pieces could have been easily cut by laser. Every part was painted. In fact I often think about that display and promise myself to try something like it with leather.

The Cherry Creek show is or was regarded as one of the toughest shows in the US to get into.

I think maybe we have a different idea of what art is. I don't consider laser engraved commodities to be art. For example there is a company out in LA that makes a pretty good business out of putting artist's works on Moleskin notebooks and Macbooks. I wouldn't let them into an arts or crafts show even though the resulting product is often quite cool. My thought is that if people are creating something new and original using the laser then it's art. If they are taking other people's art and burning it onto some commonly available substrate then no, it's not art.

Take the guy who is doing the eggs shown here recently. When he puts common pictures on the eggs then it's not art. If he puts his own designs on the eggs then it's definitely art. :-)

I mean I can see ways to use the rotary coupled with the software controls for power and speed to come with some wild designs on eggs. But it would take a lot of thinking and trial and error to perfect the technique.

One of my friends is a glass blower. She does egg shaped paperweights which have wild patterns in them and suspended droplets. They look really cool. She told me she can churn these out in her sleep now after she figured out the technique.

I think people should focus on the object being presented and not what tools were used to make it.

What if the best sculptor in the world became a quadriplegic? What if someone gave him a computer that he could control with eye movements and that computer was hooked up to a 3d printer? Then he created his objects using a graphics program rather than a block of stone and the printer made them real.

Would his creations not be art?

Lee DeRaud
07-04-2010, 11:05 AM
I think people should focus on the object being presented and not what tools were used to make it.Ding, ding ding...we have a winner! :cool:

I'm a retired software engineer. It was that profession's mindless devotion to "Process" at the expense of "Product" that convinced me to punch out when I did, and I'd really hate the same mindset to bugger up my hobbies. (Not to mention that someday I would like to be able to call myself an artist...and keep a straight face when I do it.)

Michael Hunter
07-04-2010, 12:49 PM
Many of the famous scultors have (or had if they are dead), large workshops full of technicians and helpers who actually do the work. The vision is one person's, but the art is made in a factory.
Further, they often have broze castings made of their work : done as a "limited edition" (i.e. as many as the market will bear at the price they want) these are factory made copies, yet retain the status of "fine art".
Andy Warhol did the same for paintings.

I don't often do crafty/arty items, but when I do, I am very happy to defend them as craft or art. The laser helps me make it, but it is still my idea and my effort that has gone into the Corel drawings that allow it to be made.

The Crafts Council of Great Britain makes it clear in their booklets that so long as an individual has the original idea and *supervises* every step of it's creation/realisation, it does not matter if that item is made in a factory/by other people/in multiples rather than a one-off etc. - it still counts as craft.

Martin Boekers
07-04-2010, 1:24 PM
[QUOTE=Mike Null;1460021]I have seen splendid examples of laser art. Many right here on SMC. But I do not think computer generated art belongs in the same arena as hand crafted items.

QUOTE]

Mike I would agree to a point, if it computer generated than yes that would not be art in my opinion.

Now if you design it on a computer than I think that helps on the art side.
Architects work today seems to be considered art, but I don't believe all the structures are actually hand crafted in the production.

You can go a bit more abstract with music, much of music is written and stored on computers as well as played on machine made instruments as well as electronic devices. Should that not be considered and art just becuase it wasn't written on hand made paper and played on a instrument that is acoustic and made by hand tools?


There is always been a time when newer ideas and inventions were not considered art. Think of the impressionist period in painting, it was early frowned upon because it didn't have the "photo-realist" look.

When photography developed (:D) it to faced hurdles as it was thought to be a novelty.

Art begins with a thought, develops to an idea then evolves to the finished piece.

Much of the art that is purchased today isn't a one of a kind hand made piece. Artists found that there was more money to make mass produced pieces in editions. That by today's standards is considered art (at least that is what the "art gallerys" tell us.

As for as Juried shows go I never quite understood why it takes a jury to say what you create is art, craft or crap:D These shows exist to make money and they allow entries that they feel will make money. Why they
can't have a catagory for laser or machine created art is beyond me. They allow mass produced photographs that chances are were not printed by the photographer but maybe at Walmart! They could, through an intervue process easilier weed out the crafters that purchase items for resale.

How many scrollers out there really use a hand saw? or a pedal saw.
I'll bet many use a motor to power the saw:eek: I'll bet they don't cut free hand and use a template of some sort for design to follow. Maybe even clipart created elseware. Look at all the designs that are available at a cost. Is that really art?

Mmmmm just some thoughts.

Marty

Dan Hintz
07-04-2010, 1:49 PM
I think people should focus on the object being presented and not what tools were used to make it.
Lee already beat me to giving a thumbs up to this one, but I'll requote one more time as I truly believe it hits the nail on the head.

Michael hit on an interesting point about copies being considered fine art... Thomas Kinkade has done an excellent job of taking a quality artistic technique and bastardizing it through mass marketing to the point that, regardless of how nice I may think a particular painting may be, I pass it by after hearing his name associated with it.

AL Ursich
07-04-2010, 2:04 PM
Spent some time watching all the Laser Wood Cutting You Tube Videos.....

:eek:

:D

Jim Underwood
07-04-2010, 2:11 PM
Haven't posted on the engravers forum before, but it seems to me that sentiments expressed about laser engraved stuff could have been expressed (and have been) about photography years ago. Now it's considered an art form.

A camera, or a laser engraver, is just a tool to be used.

What makes Art is the brain and hands behind the tool.

David Fairfield
07-04-2010, 3:45 PM
Yup, technology has always encroached on craftsmanship, but never replaces the craftsman. Its an evolutionary process where the craftsman ultimately embraces the technology and uses mindpower and skill to produce great original things with it. Which proves its the user, not the tool, that's most important.

Dave

John Barton
07-05-2010, 11:01 AM
I have to say that I found it quite handy to have a bandsaw with a very small toothed blade. Since my laser was out of alignment and it barely made a dent in 1/8th inch plywood I had to cut all those ovals out using the bandsaw.

The laser gave me the outline and each one took about a minute or less using the bandsaw.

Then of course we spent 5 more hours aligning the beam on the laser. :-(

Ben Levesque
07-06-2010, 1:27 PM
In what issue did the article appeared? I did not find anything in the June/July issue ???
http://americanwoodworker.com/blogs/resources/archive/2010/05/03/web-extras.aspx

Ben

Dee Gallo
07-06-2010, 2:59 PM
In what issue did the article appeared? I did not find anything in the June/July issue ???
http://americanwoodworker.com/blogs/resources/archive/2010/05/03/web-extras.aspx

Ben

Ben, it is in issue #149, the AUG/SEPT 2010 issue. Maybe not online yet? We have a subscription, so maybe that comes earlier.

:) dee