Technical Details

Woods Used: Canary, Paduk, Blood, Red Oak
Holder Material: Leather with brass snap buttons so it can be collapsed
Coaster Size: 4x4x0.188in
Finish: 220grit followed by hardwax oil (Rubio Monocoat) and ceramic top coat (Black Forrest)

Project Challenges and Lessons Learned:
This project was trickier than anticipated. Every picture must be edited differently based on the photo's quality, lighting, facial features, and overall detail. Test rasters and iteration were essential. The selection of a wood (color, tone, and grain complexity) is even more important to ensure the image rasters clearly. Facial features proved to be difficult to get right. For example, a complex grain may cause the appearance of what looks like black eyes, facial hair, or even missing teeth! I think once I had gone through the first few photos I had the system down pretty well, but I remember going into this project thinking it would take me a few days. It did not.

I purchased ready to go project boards from a shop in Wisconsin because they had a wide variety of wood types and sizes. You can check them out here: https://www.ocoochhardwoods.com/ I simply ordered a bunch to see them in person, picked the ones I liked, and headed to the laser cutter when I was ready with the edited photos. Some people say I cheated (i.e. did not spend all day milling my own wood). I say I value my time more than that. I do not regret this decision. To give the coasters a clean finished look I took my hand router around with a 0.125in round over bit on both sides before sanding. Don't try rounding edges by hand sanding, they look so much better by first using a round over. These are the little details that can really make a project stand out.

The finish of a wood coaster needs to be fairly robust. Rubio Monocoat is already a pretty good finish in terms of water resistance but it's not perfect. But when paired with a ceramic top coat there is not going to be any water mark left behind. Some choose epoxy for this but I try to stay away just from an ascetics perspective. To each their own.