Unfinished gifts and items for purchase

    I recently finished lasering a set of wood coasters (as a gift) as well as my first coasters for resale.  After lasering, wood requires a bit of sanding to remove the smoke stains caused from the burning material and it also needs to be varnished to protect the surface.  There are products such as LiquaMask that prevent stains from depositing on the working material during cutting and engraving, but for wood that could use a bit of sanding anyways, it's really not cost effective.  If I begin to work with more costly or delicate materials, preventing these stains from forming will become more important.   I was originally having some trouble preventing burn marks on the underside of the coasters (caused from a reflection of the laser after cutting through the material), but this was easily prevented by placing card stock beneath the wood.  I also happened to discover that colder wood cuts easier and engraves better than room temperature wood.  I'll be exploring this further on future projects.

Set of four unfinished Red Oak coasters

Oak and Poplar unfinished coasters to be sold