Fleur-de-lis Stencil

Our scout troop needed new stencils for painting the scout logo as a marker for the location of the flags they put out for the major holidays as a fund raiser.

Instead of cutting them out on cardboard and only get is few uses out of them before they are soaked through and no longer hold there shape, I figured I would go a differnt route since I was a member at TechShop.

What you need.
1.Material. I chose some scrap plexiglass that was laying he shop.

2.Your design drawn up in a vectoring type format. inkscape, CorelDraw, Ai

3.Access to a laser cutter/etcher.

I made this at TechShop. http://www.techshop.ws

I used inkscape to draw up my design and then imported it  into CorelDraw to print directly to the Laser cutter. I added some text and I was ready to go.
Some cutters have different requirement for line cuting and etching. Be sure you consult your manual.
I had already taken the Class at TechShop that shows you the basics.

I was using some .031" thick plexiglass I found in the scrap bin. I placed it in the cutter and taped it down to make sure it did not move as there is airflow in the cutter.

So after hitting print in CorelDraw and sending the design to the printers control panel I double check my desing placement, moved it arround as need and hit the go button to let the laser do all the work.

After about 45 seconds I was done. I took the material out of the cutter and I was all done.
Only thing left is to give it to the scouts to use.