Funny Cork Trivet

Jokes don't come easily to me, but I can enjoy a good one. I employed ChatGPT to come up with a list of funny things a self-aware trivet might say. I picked a few of my favorites and went from there. Ultimately, I had to, um, tone them down a bit. The nature of things on a trivet being hot lent itself to a bunch of one liners that sounded like cheap come-on lines!

Keep your saying entirely inside the read circle. I chose to center mine. Adjust the font size, if necessary.

Centering content on round material can be tricky. First place and auto-measure the material thickness. Sitting on my honeycomb, mine came in at 12.3 mm.

Now select all and nudge the design around. Use the red guide to visually center the content on the trivet. This will be easier and more accurate if you position the trivet near the middle of the work area.

When you think you have it right, select the guide layer and set it to Output. Now run framing (and repeat after me: slow down the settings so you can watch it more easily). The laser should pass inside the top, bottom, left, and right edges at about the same distance. Adjust the whole design if it doesn't. When you're done, don't forget to set the Guide layer to Ignore.

Cork only needs a light touch to mark it. I prefer not to engrave into the surface of cork because it's smelly and dirty. You don't want to soil the cork with a bunch of soot. So a very light setting is all that's required. Test your own material first if you're not using the IKEA trivets.

Each trivet will take about 15-20 minutes, depending on your content. When the job completes, your trivet is ready. No cleanup required.