Cute Cut Cat (for Mother's Day)

To make this cute cat, you just need:

• Laser cutter (I found one in a nearby fablab),
• Some coloured acrylic sheets, 3 mm thick.

I used white, black, green and red for the heart. The laser cutter will be used to cut the various shapes in the acrylic sheets. The overall size is around 8cm tall and 5 cm wide.

Acrylic sheets are sold with some protection layers on each side. You can keep them while cutting and peel afterwards.

To cut the acrylic, you need to control the laser cutter. There are several options for this, depending on the laser cutter framework:

1. The CAD software directly controls the laser cutter, or
2. You use a dedicated laser cutter software, such as LightBurn or RDWorks.

In the first case you need to load the model in the CAD software. I use Corel Draw. The file cat.cdr is attached below. The model is made of 3 main parts:

1. The support,
2. The cat, with holes for the heart and the eyes;
3. The pieces that will be inserted in the holes.

In case number 2, you just need to transfer all the model parts to the laser control software. The various groups of laser cut lines are in different colours, which are retained during the transfer. Set all cutting parameters to the same values, as we only cut in acrylic. For LightBurn, I use:

• Speed: 20 mm/sec
• Max power: 45%
• Min power: 30%

This is for a 100W laser cutter.

Cut each group in its respective acrylic sheet. To do this you can select only the group to cut (by setting off the others in the laser control software). Then cut, and put the next sheet on the cutting bed, select the new group, and so on...

The LightBurn model is also attached below (Cat.txt): rename it to 'Cat.zip' and extract and open the lbrn file.

If you would like to change the size of the cat just apply a scale factor to all the dimensions, except for the width of the hole in the support, which must remain constant (close to 3mm, the thickness of the acrylic sheet).

Nothing easier: just push the coloured parts into the white body, then the cat into the support. In case they don't fit in, don't force: just try to insert from the other side.

My cat has validated it...