sometimes it's nice to have access to the right tools so you can solve some of life's
little challenges in my case i've got multiple kids at home who are working different schedules
causing conflicts with car sharing so my answer was to use our lasers to make a wipe
off calendar board where they can write in their schedules so we can plan ahead
i decided on a two week calendar to make sure i covered different weekly start dates normally i
could have just cut a piece of acrylic and slapped some black stickers on it and called it a day but
i wanted to do something a little bit different the entire calendar was made out of two pieces of
eighth inch acrylic the back was made out of white acrylic and the front was made from clear acrylic
both pieces of acrylic were engraved and cut with the paper mask from the factory still applied
the front piece have the calendar lines and labels engraved in reverse this way they can
be sandwiched on the inside of the two pieces and show through the front correctly by having
the engraving sort of inside the assembly the writing surface would be completely smooth
and the engraving would be protected from being written on the engraving was spray
painted black again i could have accomplished this faster by using black stickers cut
on our vinyl cutter but i know most people with a laser probably won't have access to that equipment
so i was thinking how would i have done this with only a laser and that's why i settled on
this method a sticker on the top surface would degrade over time with people constantly writing
on and around it the sticker would have to be applied to the white backing to look good
if you had applied in reverse to the back side of the clear acrylic you'd have the adhesive
side showing through which probably wouldn't look as good either i did face one challenge and that
was how to bond the clear acrylic front piece to the white back piece any glue or double sided tape
would show through so i opted to use screws holes had been lasered out in the white acrylic sized
slightly too small for the screws this way i was able to create threads for screws using my trusty
and invaluable tap and die set seriously i don't know how anyone can not have one of these sets
i use mine all the time i cheated a little bit by using the tap in a cordless drill set to low speed
this made quick work of the holes the white acrylic had its paper mask peeled off to prepare
for assembly and then the clear acrylic had the paper mask on the engraving side peeled off
----> FREE PDF FILE PASSWORD: SMEDWIPEOFF
the clear and white pieces of acrylic were then screwed together circles had been engraved on
the front side of the clear piece to provide a little countersinking for the screw heads
the holes that were cut inside these circles were big enough for the screws to loosely fit through
i chose screws that were just long enough to engage the threads in the white acrylic
without going through the back side the tools and hardware used in this build will be listed in the
description below if you're interested now that everything was assembled i peeled off the factory
paper mask from the front of the clear acrylic the final touch was to mount some markers on
the board i used some cheap self-adhesive clips to hold the markers it was nice that i was able
to get markers that included an eraser on the cap this way i didn't need to add a tray or
something to hold an eraser the clips and pens used will be listed in the description below
i could have added holes in the design for mounting with screws but i wanted to avoid
holes in the wall i used double sided tape instead i should be able to just hit it with some heat
to soften the adhesive if i have to take it down later and i won't have any holes to fill in paint
i'm pretty happy overall with the result the true test will be if i can get everyone to use it
that remains to be seen thanks for watching let us know in the comments what you think and if
you've ever thought about doing a project like this don't forget to like subscribe and click
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