lasercut hive sets

intro

in 2022, i made some lasercut hive sets. i made six hive sets in total. three of the six were gifted to friends.

hive is a bug-themed abstract strategy game played with hexagonal pieces and no board. i like the official hive sets (the bakelite material is really nice), but i wanted to make something a little different.

inspiration and prior art

• art
  • hive board game redesign by ovidiu porfire
  • hive packaging concept by yvonne cavero
• custom hive sets
  • lasercut wood and brass weights
  • lasercut acrylic
  • perler beads
  • perler beads and magnets
  • hex nuts and stickers

materials etc

• a membership at a makerspace with a 100w co2 laser
• art by ovidiu porfire, edited in inkscape to make the svg i used to lasercut
• 9.5mm maple plywood (for the light pieces) (2 sqft)
• 3/16" walnut hardwood (for the dark pieces) (4 sqft)
• wood glue (to glue together two layers of walnut hardwood)

lasercutting

i got a membership at a not-too-far-away makerspace and got certified on their laser. i did all of the lasercutting in march, in two sessions.

tips and gotchas

• be patient, don't rush.
• always, always do test cuts first!
• remember to record any speed and power settings.
• speed and power have a delicate balance.
• prefer higher speed to reduce laser time, which costs money.
• prefer lower power to reduce smoke and charring.
• thicker wood is harder to cut through than thinner wood.
• sometimes one pass isn't enough.
• to pick up cut pieces without moving the material on the laser bed, use painter's tape to pick up the pieces. keeping the material in the same place allows re-cutting of any pieces that are not fully cut.
• sometimes, it's better to cut a little bit at a time than to cut all at once. any mistakes will ruin less material.
• do not skimp on test cuts. using the wrong settings on an actual run wastes more material than test cuts.
• travel distance of the laser affects its speed (corners and turns cause the laser to slow down). (this affects test cuts. if test cutting with small shapes, the laser may not be able to accelerate to its nominal speed.)
• the amount of smoke on the laser reduces its power and effectiveness at cutting. (gently clean the smoke off the optics to restore it to its former glory.)
• smoke will get onto the surface of the material during cutting. it can usually be cleaned off with a damp cloth.

some gifs

origami boxes

i had been keeping the hive sets in resealable plastic bags and wanted something neater and more attractive.

i imagined the pieces stacking inside a hexagonal box like in the following doodle. each set has 28 pieces, 14 light and 14 dark, 4 groups of 7 pieces, and each group of 7 pieces forms a shape that fits nicely into a hexagon.

i made the modular hexagon boxes [pdf instructions] from origami boxes by tomoko fuse. i used colored paper that i already had at home, which i cut into squares with an x-acto knife and a ruler.

some sizing calculations: the resulting hexagon side length of the base of the box is about ¹⁵⁄₆₄ of the length of the diagonal of the constituent paper squares (by inspection of the instruction diagrams), so the ratio of resulting hexagon side length to paper square side length is $\frac{\mathrm{15}}{\mathrm{64}}\sqrt{2}$ (about 1 to 3).

i tried a few different paper sizes and settled on a 7 inch square. the sizes of the boxes shown in the images below are 7.5 inches (pink), 7 inches (orange), and 6.7 inches (blue).

conclusion

i had a lot of fun making these hive sets, and i'm very happy with them! i would encourage anyone who wants to make anything for fun to try doing it. start often, finish rarely, and all that.