Tom Buzz Bernard
07-02-2013, 10:55 AM
Creation of a Laser Product
Part 6
This is not an earth-shattering, cutting-edge product discovery, but I get excited when I come up with a new idea. Especially, the anticipation of whether it will work or not. Will it be something easy to make and have high appeal, and also be impulsive to buy?
Some of my best ideas come from everyday life. It’s not always something new, but it could include making an existing product better or personalizing it.
You might be going about your day and find a daily event that inspires an idea to improve on a product or create a new one! Creating products are mainly being observant to ones needs, surroundings, and opportunities.
That is why I often say if you have a hobby, interest, or family involvement in an organization, this will usually allow you to see needs that might use products made with your laser.
The month’s idea came from being in a small enclosed area that was stinky. Stop that, you immediately thought I was talking about my favorite place in the house to read the newspaper! :rolleyes: You’re wrong :)
Let me explain this stinky situation I was in.
The wife and I belong to an organization called Golden Retriever Rescue of Atlanta. We have been fostering dogs for a few years now. We take care of the animals till they are healthy and can be adopted out to their forever homes.
My wife has started doing intakes. An intake is a new dog that has to be rescued from a shelter, or taken because of abuse, etc. Sometimes a family has to give up the dog because of foreclosure. When we go do an intake often times the dog has been neglected. No matter what condition, we take the dog to the vet to be checked over and treated for any illnesses.
On this particular day we picked up two Golden Retrievers from a shelter over an hour away. Shortly after we loaded them in the vehicle we looked at each other and said, “ROLL DOWN THE WINDOWS!” No matter how much air passed through the open windows the stench was throughout the vehicle, which made me say “after we drop the dogs off at the vet’s, let’s go get some air fresheners.”
This is where the idea started (see how easy that is) what if I could buy the raw material and cut out an air freshener with my laser? I know if I made a personalized Golden Retriever car freshener, everyone in the club would want one.
First is to figure out what material to use. With the internet this makes it an easy task for researching. Most companies talked about a canvas-type material. I immediately visualized a fabric, but it didn’t seem right. Note: The supplies I found are probably repackaged, but they sell it in small quantities and that makes it a perfect size to test on the laser. They say it is used for car fresheners everywhere. The price was inexpensive, $1.39 per blank sheet, so I ordered some from (wickswares.com)…go to air freshener supplies.
I’m not sure if the laser is going to catch this material on fire, cut through it, or make it look awful after it is cut. I’m excited though- this is the fun stuff, we get to cut, burn, and destroy substrates in the quest to find the next new product. What boy/man doesn’t like that! It keeps us young. ;) By the way, DO NOT try to carve a pumpkin with your laser, it was an awful mess to clean up! :eek:
When the material came in, it was exactly like the Car Fresheners you see on the market. I got an off-white material. I want to see if it will vector engrave. This material is sold under the name, AromaArt, by the company that sells it. It is hard to describe, it is fairly thick and has a fuzzy soft feel to it. Let me use the supplier’s description.
AromaArt™ Air Freshener Canvas is an absorbent, industrial grade paper pulp product that's available in either sheet form, or as pre-cut shapes. This is the exact same type of material used by a world-famous candle manufacturer in New England to produce their very popular line of car air fresheners shaped like their candle jars! The canvas is an off-white color, 1/10″ thick, with a soft, velvety feel. It's easily colored, fragranced, and decorated using materials that you may already have on hand or are very easily obtained. The most common use for it would probably be hanging car air fresheners, but the creative uses for this product are virtually endless. When properly made, the finished scented product isn't greasy, and provides a strong, long-lasting scent throw (dependent on the quality and amount of fragrance oil used). Sheets can be cut into squares, rectangles, and strips with a very sharp, sturdy, high-quality pair of scissors or a heavy-duty (guillotine-style) paper cutter. Customers have also reported successfully cutting sheets with professional-quality die cutting machines - the type found at most scrapbook supply stores. Occasionally they've had to use an Exacto knife on more intricate designs, but overall they've been pleased with the results. Please do NOT try to cut this material using a Sizzix®-type personal/inexpensive die cutter - it's much too thick and can damage the machine!
After reading this you can see my curiosity on how it might react to being laser cut. I like the statement “but the creative uses for this product are virtually endless.” If the laser can cut this what else could we make with it?
265630
Besides the material I also need to get the scented oil. This was the hard part. It seemed like they had over 100 different scents to pick from. The names put visions of smell into your mind. Fresh Coffee, Georgia Peach, Grandma’s Kitchen, Hot Apple Pie, Country Clothesline are just a few descriptions. The one I chose was Country Clothesline. The first thought to my mind was the smell of a dryer vent exhaust. I like that fresh smell. I know the women are smirking! Thank God he isn’t allowed to name the scents. You’re telling me you wouldn’t buy “Dryer Vent Exhaust” as scented oil? I can think of some other great scents, Fried Chicken, Smoked BBQ – wait, I must be hungry.
The scented oil comes in many size bottles. I purchased a 4 ounce container for $6.00. This is way more than I will ever use. Four ounces didn’t sound like much, but when I opened the bottle to sniff that dryer vent aroma, I almost passed out. Very little goes a long long ways. I still can’t get the smell out of my office. Why didn’t I pick Hot Apple Pie??? By the way it does not smell like Dryer Vent Exhaust. (Stop laughing at me, the wife is just shaking her head.)
So let’s try cutting this stuff on the laser (the wife is leaving the room for this). I made a small circle and set my vector settings at high speed low power; it didn’t catch on fire and almost cut completely through – yeah! I kept the same speed and added a little more power, it cut clean with no residue around the cut. I am impressed. So let’s make something.
The first trial we will use the LaserBuzz Golden Retriever design which is a full vector cut so the image can be seen from both sides. This will also allow me to see how the back side will look cut with a laser. Check out the picture, it came out great. No residue on the backside either.
265629
Next, I want to see if I can vector engrave this substrate. Vector engraving is using fast speed and low power so it just makes little burn lines. I chose a LaserBuzz horse design that has a lot of detail. It looks amazing. You can see the fine lines in the horse’s mane and even the details in the bucket. I think I could use a little more power to eliminate any voids, but overall I think we could easily personalize this substrate. This was a fun successful trial. What other ideas could we create?
265631
Let’s work out the cost of this product and try to come up with a selling price. Using the ornament size design, I can only get 6 out of one sheet. That comes to 23 cents each. The scented oil is hard to judge until we can see how many units it will cover. You definitely do not want to soak the piece, but it does say you can brush it on. I will take a guess at 35 pieces. This would bring our material costs to 40 cents each. Would this price come down if we purchased in bulk? I’m sure it would.
265632
Using my goal of trying to mark up 1000% over material cost, could we get $4.00 for a personalized scented car freshener? If you compare prices at the store for generic air fresheners you might say no, but we are talking a personalized product one cannot buy anywhere else. That makes the product impulsive to buy. Military, pets, sports, professions, corporation, schools, etc., are all possibilities. The design ideas are endless.
It is time to start thinking of what can we create for next month. My wife is giving me that scared look again! :rolleyes:
Part 6
This is not an earth-shattering, cutting-edge product discovery, but I get excited when I come up with a new idea. Especially, the anticipation of whether it will work or not. Will it be something easy to make and have high appeal, and also be impulsive to buy?
Some of my best ideas come from everyday life. It’s not always something new, but it could include making an existing product better or personalizing it.
You might be going about your day and find a daily event that inspires an idea to improve on a product or create a new one! Creating products are mainly being observant to ones needs, surroundings, and opportunities.
That is why I often say if you have a hobby, interest, or family involvement in an organization, this will usually allow you to see needs that might use products made with your laser.
The month’s idea came from being in a small enclosed area that was stinky. Stop that, you immediately thought I was talking about my favorite place in the house to read the newspaper! :rolleyes: You’re wrong :)
Let me explain this stinky situation I was in.
The wife and I belong to an organization called Golden Retriever Rescue of Atlanta. We have been fostering dogs for a few years now. We take care of the animals till they are healthy and can be adopted out to their forever homes.
My wife has started doing intakes. An intake is a new dog that has to be rescued from a shelter, or taken because of abuse, etc. Sometimes a family has to give up the dog because of foreclosure. When we go do an intake often times the dog has been neglected. No matter what condition, we take the dog to the vet to be checked over and treated for any illnesses.
On this particular day we picked up two Golden Retrievers from a shelter over an hour away. Shortly after we loaded them in the vehicle we looked at each other and said, “ROLL DOWN THE WINDOWS!” No matter how much air passed through the open windows the stench was throughout the vehicle, which made me say “after we drop the dogs off at the vet’s, let’s go get some air fresheners.”
This is where the idea started (see how easy that is) what if I could buy the raw material and cut out an air freshener with my laser? I know if I made a personalized Golden Retriever car freshener, everyone in the club would want one.
First is to figure out what material to use. With the internet this makes it an easy task for researching. Most companies talked about a canvas-type material. I immediately visualized a fabric, but it didn’t seem right. Note: The supplies I found are probably repackaged, but they sell it in small quantities and that makes it a perfect size to test on the laser. They say it is used for car fresheners everywhere. The price was inexpensive, $1.39 per blank sheet, so I ordered some from (wickswares.com)…go to air freshener supplies.
I’m not sure if the laser is going to catch this material on fire, cut through it, or make it look awful after it is cut. I’m excited though- this is the fun stuff, we get to cut, burn, and destroy substrates in the quest to find the next new product. What boy/man doesn’t like that! It keeps us young. ;) By the way, DO NOT try to carve a pumpkin with your laser, it was an awful mess to clean up! :eek:
When the material came in, it was exactly like the Car Fresheners you see on the market. I got an off-white material. I want to see if it will vector engrave. This material is sold under the name, AromaArt, by the company that sells it. It is hard to describe, it is fairly thick and has a fuzzy soft feel to it. Let me use the supplier’s description.
AromaArt™ Air Freshener Canvas is an absorbent, industrial grade paper pulp product that's available in either sheet form, or as pre-cut shapes. This is the exact same type of material used by a world-famous candle manufacturer in New England to produce their very popular line of car air fresheners shaped like their candle jars! The canvas is an off-white color, 1/10″ thick, with a soft, velvety feel. It's easily colored, fragranced, and decorated using materials that you may already have on hand or are very easily obtained. The most common use for it would probably be hanging car air fresheners, but the creative uses for this product are virtually endless. When properly made, the finished scented product isn't greasy, and provides a strong, long-lasting scent throw (dependent on the quality and amount of fragrance oil used). Sheets can be cut into squares, rectangles, and strips with a very sharp, sturdy, high-quality pair of scissors or a heavy-duty (guillotine-style) paper cutter. Customers have also reported successfully cutting sheets with professional-quality die cutting machines - the type found at most scrapbook supply stores. Occasionally they've had to use an Exacto knife on more intricate designs, but overall they've been pleased with the results. Please do NOT try to cut this material using a Sizzix®-type personal/inexpensive die cutter - it's much too thick and can damage the machine!
After reading this you can see my curiosity on how it might react to being laser cut. I like the statement “but the creative uses for this product are virtually endless.” If the laser can cut this what else could we make with it?
265630
Besides the material I also need to get the scented oil. This was the hard part. It seemed like they had over 100 different scents to pick from. The names put visions of smell into your mind. Fresh Coffee, Georgia Peach, Grandma’s Kitchen, Hot Apple Pie, Country Clothesline are just a few descriptions. The one I chose was Country Clothesline. The first thought to my mind was the smell of a dryer vent exhaust. I like that fresh smell. I know the women are smirking! Thank God he isn’t allowed to name the scents. You’re telling me you wouldn’t buy “Dryer Vent Exhaust” as scented oil? I can think of some other great scents, Fried Chicken, Smoked BBQ – wait, I must be hungry.
The scented oil comes in many size bottles. I purchased a 4 ounce container for $6.00. This is way more than I will ever use. Four ounces didn’t sound like much, but when I opened the bottle to sniff that dryer vent aroma, I almost passed out. Very little goes a long long ways. I still can’t get the smell out of my office. Why didn’t I pick Hot Apple Pie??? By the way it does not smell like Dryer Vent Exhaust. (Stop laughing at me, the wife is just shaking her head.)
So let’s try cutting this stuff on the laser (the wife is leaving the room for this). I made a small circle and set my vector settings at high speed low power; it didn’t catch on fire and almost cut completely through – yeah! I kept the same speed and added a little more power, it cut clean with no residue around the cut. I am impressed. So let’s make something.
The first trial we will use the LaserBuzz Golden Retriever design which is a full vector cut so the image can be seen from both sides. This will also allow me to see how the back side will look cut with a laser. Check out the picture, it came out great. No residue on the backside either.
265629
Next, I want to see if I can vector engrave this substrate. Vector engraving is using fast speed and low power so it just makes little burn lines. I chose a LaserBuzz horse design that has a lot of detail. It looks amazing. You can see the fine lines in the horse’s mane and even the details in the bucket. I think I could use a little more power to eliminate any voids, but overall I think we could easily personalize this substrate. This was a fun successful trial. What other ideas could we create?
265631
Let’s work out the cost of this product and try to come up with a selling price. Using the ornament size design, I can only get 6 out of one sheet. That comes to 23 cents each. The scented oil is hard to judge until we can see how many units it will cover. You definitely do not want to soak the piece, but it does say you can brush it on. I will take a guess at 35 pieces. This would bring our material costs to 40 cents each. Would this price come down if we purchased in bulk? I’m sure it would.
265632
Using my goal of trying to mark up 1000% over material cost, could we get $4.00 for a personalized scented car freshener? If you compare prices at the store for generic air fresheners you might say no, but we are talking a personalized product one cannot buy anywhere else. That makes the product impulsive to buy. Military, pets, sports, professions, corporation, schools, etc., are all possibilities. The design ideas are endless.
It is time to start thinking of what can we create for next month. My wife is giving me that scared look again! :rolleyes: