I wanted to send a gift to my newest great grandson and my original plan was to send him the baby coin collection for his year of birth. Unfortunately, the Royal Australian Mint didn’t create a set this year…or at least they haven’t so far. So instead, I decided to engrave some cute cutlery with his name and we thought we would show you how we did it using the xTool F1.
The cutlery set has Australian animals on the handles and we liked the outcome so much we went and bought a couple more of the cutlery sets for Aurelia (Paula’s great niece) and Freya (my great granddaughter). Being on sale helped as we basically bought 3 sets for the price of one.
The xTool F1 is one of our favourite laser machines as it is easy to set up, easy to use and it’s portable making it ideal to take to markets and do engraving for customers on the spot.
It doesn’t take up much space in the craft room and we have ours sitting on a shelf in our Kallax that we purchased from Ikea. Being lightweight it takes no time at all to take it from the shelf and set it up on the workspace.
Watch the tutorial below or scroll down for written instructions
Let’s get started…
The first step was to choose a font so we went to our favourite source – Creative Fabrica and downloaded . This font is an elegant script font and it lends itself well to this sort of project. I was very happy with how Xavier’s set turned out.
Getting the xTool F1 ready
The first thing to do is turn on the xTool F1 and connect it to the computer with the cables that are provided with the machine.
If you want more details on setting up your xTool laser engraver we have a review video that you can watch.
Engraving on Cutlery
After choosing the in Creative Fabrica we installed it to our computer so that we could access it in xTool Creative Space. This font worked really well for this project. It is an elegant script font that lends itself to engraving.
Settings Used
We did a test on some spare stainless steel cutlery that we had on hand and found that the following settings worked best for us. Make sure you test these settings first before committing to your project.
- Power – 100%
- Speed – 50
- Pass -2
- 200 – lines per cm
Remember that whenever you are starting a new project, always do a test on the same or similar material before committing to the main project.
Getting the Project Ready to Engrave
Some of the cutlery pieces needed to have the handle part raised so that they lay flat. To do this we popped the L-shaped positioning piece into the base plate and added some pieces of wood to the base, making sure to push it snuggly into the corner of the positioning piece.
Doing this gave us the extra height and also helped to keep the piece we were engraving firmly in position.
Setting the Laser
Once we had a the piece of cutlery that we wanted to engrave set onto the base of the xTool F1, we adjusted the laser so that the red and the blue dots were merged together. Just turn the button on the side of the machine to do this.
Now you just need to click the ‘Frame’ button in Creative Space. This allows you to see exactly where the engraving is going to be placed.
You can move the piece around and frame as often as needed until you have the name lined up exactly where you want it.
The most fiddly part was centering the name as the cutlery tends to curl away on the sides. So there was a bit of mucking around to get the name centered as much as possible. Watch the video above to see this in action.
Now that everything is lined up, press PROCESS.
And then on the next screen press START.
Then you just need to press the button on the side of the machine to begin the engraving.
Don’t forget to close the safety cover, and if you project is too long to allow you to close the cover completely then make sure to wear your protective glasses. In fact you should wear them regardless of whether the cover is closed or not. It is most important to protect your eyes when using a laser machine.
And away it goes, the laser is doing a beautiful job of engraving the name.
As we have said many times, this is one of our favourite laser machines. And you can add the extension slide which makes it even more versatile.
So if you are looking for something that is a bit different as a baby gift then why not engrave a cutlery set. It is something that will be practical and useful for many years to come.
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