May 27, 2026

I came in to draw the last pose at FUSION in Albuquerque:

DIE CUTTING

During Hack Night at Quelab (May 27, 2026), Adric fashioned some dies for die cutting, with a thin bandsaw blade. He first laser cut a pattern into a hard bamboo tile, and then pushed the bandsaw blade into the tile, teeth first:

Adric had made a "Q" die

with a bandsaw blade

Inserting the "Q" die and the paper to cut

CRUNCH!

The "Q" die and the leather press

Ultimately he only got an embossing in the paper, no die cutting.

Apparently the leather press pushed the bandsaw blade deeper into the tile.

However we made a lot of progress, and I think this homemade die approach should work next time.

Earlier we used the same leather press tool to punch out linoleum tiles:

PRINTMAKING -- UNM/UTEP Print Exchange, 

plus Die Cutting Tessellations

We successfully used a tessellation die

to punch out a tessellation tile in linoleum

• Rob Atkinson's new website