3d looking trivet

[Ernie Balch]

My work was caught up so I decided to make some trivets.

I stained some 1/8" maple I bought from George P. Then laser cut a bunch of diamond shapes and glued them up.

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It has a nice 3D effect that makes people reach out and touch it.

ernie

[Jason Hilton]

Very cool! Tell us more about how you accomplished the effect?

[Ernie Balch]

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Notice that each set of 3 outlined diamonds forms a hexagon. Just draw a hexagon shape in Corel draw and edit it into the diamond shape you need deleting the rest. Cut a bunch of diamonds all the same size out of 3 different colors of wood. Then place on a backer and glue up the repeated pattern.

ernie

[Bert Kemp]

is dividing a hexagon really necessary, why not just cut out diamonds and glue them up saves a lot of work wouldn't it?

[Ernie Balch]

Just calculate the angles and lengths you need so everything fits in an array. By drawing a hexagon and editing some lines I was sure everything would fit perfectly without thinking too hard.

[Andrew Holloway]

Looks great Ernie. Lots of possibilities using that technique

[Lee DeRaud]

Just calculate the angles and lengths you need so everything fits in an array.Vertex angles are 60 and 120 degrees. But I'll make it even easier: 287692

[Jason Hilton]

Cool! Thought there was more to it! Should have noticed the different wood types.

[Lee DeRaud]

Cool! Thought there was more to it! Should have noticed the different wood types.That's the easy way, but actually, it works fine with one type of wood if you keep the grain running the same direction in every diamond: the grain reflects differently along/across the grain (and in between), giving three different effects. It's much more obvious with oblique lighting...that second picture was with the light almost straight on. (First picture is three different woods.)
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[Dee Gallo]

I love this project! My cousin did this on his floor with 12" shapes- very weird to walk on, but never fails to get big raves from everybody.