A lifetime ago, I last saw the girl who first broke my heart on valentines day. She gave me a packet of sweet watches – a bit of a jab about timekeeping.
By the time I was smarting from my second broken heart, I had me a 3D printer and the unfinished first project that I was never happy with was My Dark Heart; a black anatomical heart. It was going to be a necklace, it was going to be a box, it was going to be lifesize with a watch set into it so it ticked relentlessly until it finally gave out.
Time passed and the smarting went away. I never resolved My Dark Heart.
Fast forward, 2021. Valentine’s day; a day with Bertha (my laser cutter). The inspiration for My Dark Heart was Leonardo DaVinci drawings, and it has never gone away, so after my card issues, I’m trying wood…
The first burn came out way too dark and reminded me of My Dark Heart. This is an unprocessed image (I worked on it a lot to get it ready, but didn’t change the colours). [1000 speed, 50% laser.]
So began an afternoon of tests… These are all about 55mm high.
Starting at the bottom left and working across and up:
Unprocessed image
[2500, 50%]
Lightburn traced image to paths.
[2500s, 50%, 5 passes by mistake!!!]
Lightburn traced image to paths.
[2500s, 50%, 1 pass!]
Modified image:
PS: Black and White (yellow filter), brightness +77, contrast -50
[2500s, 50%]
Love it, want it a bit darker.
Modified image – darker perfect.
[2500s, 60% laser]
All of these are on a peice of MDF.
So onward to putting it onto a peice of 2mm ply and cutting it out!
Love this. I was hoping that I would have a product I could sell by the end of the day, but there is a lot to decide with loads of variables, so it’s not there.
But it’s looking lovely and it’s working. My first wood cut!!!
My Dark Heart is not all that dark.
