Osaka Castle Model (Project 0050)

by Aaron HG

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Project Overview

This is a model of Osaka Castle made out of laser cut plywood. It is originally designed to be cut from 3mm plywood, but can easily be scaled to other thicknesses of material.

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Tools and Materials

• 3mm Plywood
• Acrylic Paint
• 1.75mm PLA 3D Printer Filament

Project Files

• castleLayout_.11 - Aaron Heidgerken-Greene.ai

Step-by-Step Instructions

Scale the Model to the size of the plywood you are using. Open the .AI file in Adobe Illustrator, and select all the objects to cut. Go to the Objects->Transform->Scale, and type in the desired scale factor. For example, if you want to use 3/16" plywood instead of 3mm, you would enter (100*.19/.11) = 172.72% (.19 being the decimal thickness of the 3/16" and .11 being the decimal thickness of the 3mm).

Arrange the pieces to fit in your cutting area and material size. I was using the Universal PLS6.75, which has a bed area of 32"x18", but my material was only 20"x12", so not all the pieces could fit on a single sheet.

Send to the laser to cut. If you are using the Universal, you can do this as simply as selecting File->Print (and adjusting the settings accordingly), but if you are using the Glowforge, you may have to save your file to SVG, and import it into the Glowforge cutting software. Beware! Sometimes the Glowforge with import artwork at 75% of the original size, so make sure to check sizes before cutting.

Paint the pieces. Your finished product will be much nicer if you paint the pieces before assembly.

Assemble the model! I don't actually have assembly instructions, so this will be a bit of trial and error. If you run into any issues, please let me know!