Laser Cut Catan Board

As a big Catan fanatic, I decided to make my own DIY and semi-portable Catan board. In order to make this board, I designed all of the component parts in Figma.

• Figma
• Plywood for Laser-cutter
• Glowforge Laser Cutter
• Wood Stain (optional)

In Figma, I used an image tracer plugin to derive patterns from black and white images. Then, using the masking feature in Figma, I masked each pattern within each hexagon.

Using the same process as designing the resource hexagons, each probability tile and port tile was designed using the elipse tool in Figma, masking tool, and image trace plugin.

In order to fully design what the board was going to look like, I lined up all of the resource hexagons within the larger hexagon (the board), and added various detailing on the board (e.g. ports, waves, etc.)

Depending on your laser cutter, this step might vary. However, using a GlowForge Laser Cutter, you need to adjust all of the cutting/engraving settings for the parts of my board. For example, in order to cut each individual resource hexagon out, you need to have Cut settings set to the right speed & power, but to engrave each individual resource hexagon, you need to change the Engrave settings, not the cutting settings. For this board, I decided to not cut out the resource tiles on the board itself but engrave them using a higher power so they could fit onto the board.

Waiting is the hardest part, but also the most rewarding.