Original Acrylic Desk Calendar

Now in the 21st century there are many variations of the calendar. Most often, people use the calendar on their phone. This is really handy as there are many different additional functions. It is possible to create a schedule for a specific day, turn on a reminder, for example, about the upcoming birthday of your friend. But despite all the advantages of electronic calendars, paper, plastic calendars are still relevant. You can, for example, put a small paper calendar in your wallet, so it will always be at hand.

Also, a calendar can be an interesting decorative element. There are many options for the original calendars that are easy to use and will look great in your workplace.

You will need:

- CO laser machine
- Acrylic 2 mm
- Box for working with acrylic
- Acrylic paint - Masking tape
- dichloroethane glue
- cotton swabs or a brush
- LightBurn program

First you need to glue the acrylic with masking tape, which in the future will play the role of a stencil for painting. It is important to stick it on so that it covers the entire surface on one side.

To determine the parameters, we focused the beam on a rough area of acrylic, also covered with masking tape. Further, by means of trial and error, we determined under what parameters the best result is obtained.

- cutting :
power 100%, speed 380 mm / m

- engraving :
power 40%, speed 6000 mm / m.

In your case, they may be slightly different. We recommend that you first test them on a small figure and possibly make adjustments.
After determining the parameters, we recommend that you check if your paint is suitable for acrylic. Otherwise, after painting, you will see small cracks in the painted area.

Now you can go to finishing material.

We recommend not changing the order of the layers , and engraving first and then cutting.

After finishing the work of the machine, it is necessary to clean the engraved areas well with a brush. Now you can proceed to painting. To prevent paint from getting on the connecting holes, you can make a stencil from cardboard, as shown in the photo.

For painting we will use a special acrylic paint.

After the paint has dried, carefully peel off all the masking tape.

To make the whole structure strong, we used dichloroethane glue.

With the help of a cotton swab, we glued all the connections.

After completing the assembly, we received an original hand-made calendar.