Frame for Wooden Butterfly

MAT 111PF Final Project: Anything we want, so long as it combines the creative processes we have learned about during this course.

I've decided to make an extension of my 2nd project, the wooden butterfly, because I was quite attached to it and I sort of wanted to permanently keep it on my wall. However, the butterfly seemed a little lackluster on its own, so I wanted to make a frame for it, so that it will look a little more grounded.

1. 1/8th inch plywood

2. 1/10th inch acrylic

3. Some sort of 3d modeling software

4. Laser cutter

Sketch out the ideal design of the final product, mostly to scale. For the design of the shape of the frame, I took inspiration from some stained glass pieces and old picture/mirror frames that I found on pinterest

I originally designed a frame with lots of complex curvature and organic-looking designs, but I realized during the CAD process such an artistic shape was difficult to model in Fusion. I ended up simplifying the design by quite a bit, keeping only the essential features, such as the flower in the background and the general overall dimensions relative to the butterfly.

The frame itself was designed to be an assembly of 3 separate pieces, with two of the piece in the first picture sandwiching one piece of the 2nd picture, giving both the front and back of the frame a bit of depth.

Modify the original design of the butterfly body piece to include 2 protrusions at the bottom, in order to attach to the frame.

Assemble the frame and the butterfly in CAD to make sure everything looks good.

Take the shapes of the larger holes in the butterfly wings, and separate the cutting toolpath based on which colors to use for the holes.

Laser cut the frame pieces, gluing the layers together. Then attach the modified butterfly body to the frame.

Laser cut the acrylic pieces and press fit them into the holes in the butterfly wings.

Slot the wings in and the project is complete! It looks really cool under the sun :D

I think the biggest problem I ran into whilst working on this project was figuring out the tolerances on the acrylic pieces going into the holes in the butterfly wings. I think this may have something to do with the way the wings were originally cut, but even when I lowered the kerf setting on the laser in Fusion to 0.1mm, I still needed to sand the pieces a bit before they were able to fit into the holes. However, I am very pleased with the way it all turned out! I think it looks really cool and I can't wait to hang it up on the wall.