Easy Laser Engraved Coasters

A few years ago my brother asked me to make a teak bar top for his outdoor kitchen. It turned out great! In fact I liked it so much that I made another one almost exactly like it when we built our outdoor kitchen. Really pretty. So now teak has become my favorite wood to work with and I've made several cutting boards, a couple of charcuterie/wine serving sets, and I'm currently working on a teak fly rod case. I'll post an update in the gallery on the fly rod cases in my Wooden Fly Road Case Instructable when I finish.

As a result of all these different projects I always end up with lots of scrap pieces and cut offs that I can never bring myself to get rid of. I have a 6 foot table piled high with all of these odds and ends and I'm always looking for ways to use them up. Now that I've purchased a laser cutter that job has gotten a lot easier. I am amazed at all of the intricate things you can make with it. Stuff that I'd never dream of doing by hand. You can take something that is very simple and turn it into a very ornate piece.

Yesterday I broke another one of our ceramic coasters. I never seem to learn. On humid days a lot of water condenses on the outside of my beer mug and runs down the side and onto the coaster (which is why you have a coaster). I'll pick up the mug (not paying attention) and the water will sort of form a weak seal between the bottom of the mug and the coaster causing it to (momentarily) stick to the mug. Once the seal breaks the coaster goes crashing to the tile floor and shatters into little tiny pieces. The good news is that I had an idea for making some new wooden (and hopefully unbreakable) coasters from teak. They turned out really nice and are super easy to make. I'll show you how I did it...

Materials

Teak - If you are in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas then a good source is Landscape Systems Garden Center in Keller. Added bonus... They have several very friendly dogs on staff to greet you when you walk in.

Super glue

Teak oil

Wax

4 Inch Diameter Cork backing... I used these.

Tools

Laser Cutter... I have an XTool S1

Router Table

Surface Planer

Miter Saw

Random Orbital Sander

Table Saw

It all depends on the pieces of wood you have available as to what kind of prep work you need to do to get your blanks cut to size. I had some big cutoffs that I had to resaw into thinner sheets using my table saw (I need to get a decent band saw) and then ran through the surface planer. The teak boards I had were an inch and a half thick and five inches wide. The five inch width was handy for this project so I didn't need to rip them any narrower. The stands are made from quarter inch thick blanks (by 9 inches long) and the coaster is just a little under three eigths thich (by 4.5 inches long).

I used a quarter inch spiral router bit to cut a channel in the ends of the blanks for the stand pieces. The slot is a tad shy of an eighth inch deep. Afterwards I decided to cut the board in half down the middle to make it easier to handle in the laser cutter. Each piece will make a single stand with a base and three legs.

I'll include the DXF file that I used for the stand but they are very simple shapes. It would be easy to design your own if you are so inclined. The coaster is just a 4-3/8 inch diameter circle that I created with the laser cutter software so no DXF file needed there.

In the first two pictures I am carefully aligning the blank for the base so that the slots are correctly positioned on the legs. It is important that the blank sits square to the cutter head and the slots don't end up at an angle.

The coaster is cut to 4-3/8 inches in diameter. My laser cutter was just powerful enough to make the cut in a single pass. I chose the size of the coaster based on the precut self adhesive cork backing that I found on Amazon. If you decide to make a different size then you'll need to scale the coaster stand parts accordingly... or design your own stand.

A quarter inch diameter round over bit finishes the edges of the coaster on both sides. Afterwards it is sanded smooth with 220 grit sandpaper. Last pic... ready to engrave.

The sky is the limit here as far as what you engrave on your coasters. Just be mindful of images that are trademarked. Since I am a graduate (BSEE 1982) of Texas A&M University I went with the version of the university seal that was in use when I was in school. My understanding is that this seal is a protected trademark so making these to sell would not be an option unless I obtained a license agreement from the university. But I don't make stuff to sell anyway... I make a limited amount and give it away to friends and family.

I am still learning to use my laser cutter and it took me several attempts to get an engraving that I was happy with. I started with the settings that were automatically generated and then increased the power level to get the depth of cut that looked good to me. I would imagine that different models of laser cutters produce different results so you'll need to play around with the settings to get a result that is pleasing to you.

Simple process to set up. In the first picture I'm marking the location of the cut. There are different shapes to pick from and obviously we're going with a circle here. Three points are marked around the circumference to define the size of the circle. In the second shot the laser is engraving the image. It was a dreary rainy day outside (third pic) so it was perfect for drinking a cup of coffee and watching the laser run. Last pic... final results... looks great!

I coated the coasters with teak oil until the wood stopped absorbing the oil. I lightly oiled the bottom of the coasters with a single thin coat. I was concerned that if I got too much oil on the bottom that the cork backing might not stick properly. With that single thin coat I didn't have any problems. Just make sure that the oil has soaked in and the surface is dry. Simply peel off the backing paper and center the cork disc on the back of the coaster. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

I gave one of the coasters the beer mug test and wasn't totally satisfied that the teak oil protected the wood to level that I would like to see. Water from the mug wasn't beading up as much as I sort of expected it would so I applied some wax that I used for cutting boards. Better!

Assembling the stand is a snap. Apply super glue to the slot in the legs and insert the base into the slot. Make sure that the legs are perpendicular to the base as the glue cures. Afterwards apply teak oil until the wood absorbs all that it will take. That's all she wrote!

I love my new coasters... and so does my wife... and so do a bunch of my Aggie buddies. Ha, I've had requests to make several sets (last pic). Which makes me very happy. This is a super simple, easy, and quick to make project that people seem to really like. What a great idea for Christmas!

If you have any comments or questions please feel free to write them below in the comment section. And if you make your own set of coasters then post pics! I'd love to see your work.

Until the next Instructable...

SW