Valentine's Day
Key Chain

Valentine's Day is not about buying large, expensive gifts.

Valentine's Day is a day to remind your significant other how much you love them. One way to do this is by making them a special personalised gift. In this tutorial we show you how to laser cut and engrave a wooden keychain for your sweetheart.

Preparation

Required material:

Alder wood prefinished (3mm thick)
Key ring

Trotec Laser Machine Used:

Speedy 360
80 watts
2.0 inch lens

Tips:

Use a honeycomb cutting table

Step by Step

Step 1: Graphic

Open the template provided below or create your own design. If you create your own design, make sure that the parts are not too narrow, otherwise the keychain will break easily. Give the keychain more stability by connecting the single letters (see screenshot). On the prefinished wood it is possible to achieve a light surface by engraving with low power and high Z-Offset. Download the laser parameters provided below and try it!

Step 2: Laser Processing

You will need a piece of prefinished Alder wood with a thickness of about 4 mm. You can also use other types of wood, but please note that the parameters must be adjusted accordingly.
Mount the 2.0 inch lens and place the honeycomb cutting table in the laser machine. Then, put the piece of wood on the laser cutting table. To create maximum vacuum, cover the surface around the wood with paper or card.

Laser Parameters:

We worked on a Speedy 360 with 80 watts power and used the following parameters:
Cutting: Power: 95% - Speed: 1.8% - Frequency: 1000 Hz - Air Assist: ON
Cutting-in: Power: 10% - Speed: 2% - Frequency: 1000 Hz - Air Assist: ON
Engraving white: Power: 18% - Speed: 60% - Frequency: 500 ppi - Air Assist: ON - Z-Offset: 2.00
Engraving dark: Power: 50% - Speed: 60% - Frequency: 500 ppi - Air Assist: ON - Z-Offset: 2.00

Tip:

You may use JobControl-files at the bottom of this page to avoid retyping the parameters. More information on importing files in JobControl can be found here.