Author Archives: Sarah Holbrook

Laser etching a MacBook Air

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Sarah Holbrook

I had the opportunity to etch a MacBook Air for my friends at Panic last week and made a short video to show the process.

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Scherenschnitte template: Girl feeding a chicken

Posted on July 16, 2011 by Sarah Holbrook

For the last two Fridays I’ve created new wall pieces, first a papercut with elephants (“Abatee”) and next a girl feeding a chicken (“Early Bird”). For those of you interested in the craft of Scherenschnitte I thought you might enjoy cutting … Continue reading →

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Running slow: eliminating wobbles

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Sarah Holbrook

There is a trade off between speed and quality with x-y laser cutting. This 80# cardstock test shows a slow run on the left and a fast run on the right. To get the best results I run the laser … Continue reading →

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Cutting OSBP’s logo: behind the scenes

Posted on April 21, 2011 by Sarah Holbrook

I was delighted to have Carina of Crow & Canary swing by the workshop last week to take some photos for a guest post on Oh So Beautiful Paper. Here’s what it took to prepare the OSBP logo, with calligraphy … Continue reading →

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How to improve laser raster images with tuning

Posted on April 3, 2011 by Sarah Holbrook

Adjusting the “tuning” in the Universal Control Panel (UCP) can make a dramatic difference in the clarity of raster images. For GCC/LaserPro machines this feature is also called tuning. On Epilog it is called “Laser Match.” Last autumn I added a … Continue reading →

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Freshly Cut: Thank You cards for Sense Labs

Posted on December 23, 2010 by Sarah Holbrook

Check out the blog post over at Sense Labs about the custom thank you cards I cut for them. They requested a video so I tried to shine enough lights on the work area to make it visible. I also … Continue reading →

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Overriding the ULS interlock

Posted on November 3, 2010 by Sarah Holbrook

Enclosed lasers such as ULS and Epilog have a safety feature where the beam won’t fire if the doors are open. On my system the front panel shows a blinking red light when the doors are open and a green … Continue reading →

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Posted on October 18, 2010 by Sarah Holbrook

Beautiful toilet paper roll art by Anastassia Elias. (via)

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Freshly Cut – Stencil for Behrens Group

Posted on October 10, 2010 by Sarah Holbrook

Brian of Behrens Group was commissioned by Make Animals and Opus Solutions to make some ”road cases” as part of Intel’s Rock Legend program. He was on a deadline so there wasn’t time to shop for materials; we used some 1/8” acrylic I had on hand. The … Continue reading →

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Posted on October 6, 2010 by Sarah Holbrook

Etched iPad for Apparent Systems. They’re rolling out a bunch of these pre-loaded with a test version of their latest app. The etching was pretty straightforward. I used my old iPhone as a material sample to get the settings right. … Continue reading →

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