Laser Cut Surfboard Wax Comb

Using the Glowforge Laser Printer, I will show you how to print your own wax combs to rough up old surfboard wax.

Using Ai (Adobe Illustrator) create a design for the wax comb with the lines tool. You should create it to scale using very thin lines. Here I also created a logo to be engraved on my wax comb. The reason why the outline and the logo are different colors is so that when I import the design into Glowforge, the red lines will be set to cut and the black lines will be set to engrave. You can put any picture over the design to be engraved as long as the lines are clean and thin.

After importing your design into the Glowforge, put a piece of wood of a 1/8 inch thickness in the Glowforge. Place the design where you want to be printed and set the red lines to cut and the black lines to engrave. Click "custom" and set the settings like this:

Red Lines: Cut

Speed - 230

Power - Full

x3 runs through

Black Lines: Engrave

speed - 1000

Power - Full

Once you have changed the settings and placed the design on the piece of wood, you can press print on your computer and then press the button on the machine.

Once the glowforge is done cutting, it will need a cool down period before you can open it. Once the computer says you may open the machine, you can take out the piece of wood carefully and remove your wax comb.

To create the scraper edge for the wax comb, I used a bench sander to sand down the edge. I adjusted the leveler so that it was at around a 45-degree angle. I then brought the edge to the sander and created a scraper edge on the long side and the short edge opposite from the hole.

This part of the wax comb allows you to completely remove surfboard wax from your board for resurfacing. The shorter edge allows you to get into pressure dents and scrape around the rails.

For the cord, I used pieces of rope that I found on the beach but any sort of thick cord would work too. I cut a piece around 8-10 inches long and strung it through the hole. I secured the cord by tieing a knot at the end.

This cord allows you to put the wax comb on keys or just to hang.