Light/Dark Coffee coasters with acrylic inlay

The settings are for the S1 20W laser.  You may need to adjust the settings for your laser configuration.

Be sure to follow all the safety guidelines for your laser and always wear personal protective equipment when the laser is in operation. 

The first step is to run the job to cut out the wood parts.  The design file has a separate tab that has the circle for the base of the coaster.   

In the design file there is another tab with the same design, but is set up for acrylic.  

Next, Load up the machine with 3mm basswood.  There is a canvas with settings for this cut on the S1.  Once the laser is done, you may want to use simple trick to keep all the small parts together.  I like to place a strip of masking tape on top of the wood.  This allows me to pick up all of the cut out parts together.  

Next, it is good to dry fit all the parts together.  This helps to make sure you have all the parts in the right place and gives you an opportunity to fix any errors.

Next, I separated the wood parts and used a cherry stain to add a little bit of color to the coasters.

With the wooden parts stained, now let's remove the protective tape from the acrylic and reassemble the coaster.  With everything assembled, add a layer of masking tape to the top.  This will allow you to keep all the parts together and flip over the top layer so that you can add glue.

For this project, I am using super glue so that there is a good bond between the acrylic and the wood.  I am not sure if wood glue would make a strong bond.

Once you apply the glue, flip the top layer back over onto the base plate.  Make sure it is as centered as possible.