I just finished up these coasters, as a gift for the founders/co-hosts of our local board gaming group:

(I’m sorry for the phone photo / lighting quality. The background colors are more vibrant that the photos would suggest. Also, the last one isn’t an etch; it’s a cut backed by black foam.)

Materials:

• 3mm Baltic Birch ply
• 2mm EVA foam

(For the specific material settings I used, see my companion post in Beyond the Manual: Birch Ply and EVA Foam Coasters)

I also considered cork backs, but I preferred the ability to mix & match the background colors.

Lessons learned:

I don’t suspect I learned much that others don’t already know…

• It was a lot of work to get the cut patterns just right within the meeple shapes, but ultimately a fun learning project. I certainly got plenty of practice with the path manipulation tools!

• I’m sure it’s material-specific, but there was definitely a threshold level of detail to dial in, both in terms of extremely thin lines being too fragile and thicker lines hiding too much background.

• Coasters get wet, so make sure the finish and glue/adhesive can handle it.