Cut from a single sheet, this squirrel holds an acorn to its mouth while its tail curls upward behind it, and every light strip of its fur becomes an opening that the wall shows through. The free squirrel DXF file gives you that shape as clean closed contours for laser cutters, plasma tables and cutting plotters, so you can turn it into wall art, a metal sign or a vinyl decal.
What I enjoy most about this squirrel as a cut piece is what happens after it goes on the wall. When the wood hangs a few millimetres away from the surface, light passes through the 51 openings in the fur, and each opening throws a thin shadow beside its edge. The flame-like strips then seem to move a little as the light in the room changes through the day. For that reason, I designed the whole animal as one connected piece: the outer contour holds the body, and every strip, toe and whisker opening sits inside it. Nothing floats on its own, so when the cutting is finished, you lift out one complete squirrel, and no loose part needs to be glued back in place.
Closed Contours Ready for Laser, Plasma and Plotter Cutting
The DXF is saved in AutoCAD 2000 (R2000) format, with millimetres as its unit. The drawing contains 52 closed contours: one outer contour for the silhouette, and 51 inner contours for the openings. Fifty of the inner contours are smooth spline curves, and the eye is drawn as a true ellipse. All of the cutting geometry sits on one layer, so you can select the whole squirrel in one step in your cutting software. At its original size, the artwork measures about 283.3 × 350 mm.
At this size, the narrowest bridges are about 1.2 mm wide. They sit around the nose, between the whiskers, around the acorn, and between the chest and the front paw. The smallest openings measure about 2 × 2 mm. Those details give the squirrel its alert face, so I kept them in the drawing on purpose. On a laser cutter, the beam is narrow enough to follow these lines in 3 mm plywood, MDF or acrylic, and the wall art from the first image is a good example of the result: a dark wood squirrel with the light fur strips cut cleanly through. After cutting, you can stain or paint the piece, and then hang it with small spacers behind it, so that the shadows can form around the openings.
A cutting plotter reads the same contours as a vinyl decal outline. At about 28 × 35 cm, the squirrel makes a clear wall decal above a child’s bed or a striking decal on a door. Once the plotter has cut the vinyl, weed out the openings, apply transfer tape, and then press the decal onto a clean, smooth surface.
On a plasma table, the squirrel becomes a metal sign for a garden fence, a gate or a workshop wall. A plasma arc removes a much wider path than a laser beam, however, and the 1.2 mm bridges and the small whisker openings are narrower than that path at the original size. For plasma cutting I would therefore scale the drawing up to about twice its size, which is roughly 570 × 700 mm. At that scale, the bridges become wide enough for the arc, and the squirrel keeps every detail of its face.
Download the Free Squirrel DXF Cut File for Laser, Plasma and Vinyl Plotters
The download contains one DXF file with the complete squirrel cut outline.
- Format: DXF, AutoCAD 2000 (R2000)
- Units: millimetres
- Geometry: 52 closed contours (1 outer contour, 51 inner openings), no loose islands
- Artwork size: about 283.3 × 350 mm
- Finest details: bridges of about 1.2 mm, smallest openings of about 2 × 2 mm
Download the squirrel DXF and import it into your laser, plasma or plotter software with millimetres as the unit. Then check that the drawing arrives at its 283 × 350 mm size, set the scale for your machine and material, and place the squirrel on your sheet.
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License and Usage
These files are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 for strictly personal, non-commercial use.
You are free to download, cut, and modify these designs for your personal projects. However, you may not sell the digital files or any physical products manufactured from them. If you share a modified version of this design, you must credit FreePatternsArea and distribute it under this exact same license.
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