Custom Live iPad & Phone Holder: CNC Laser Engraving Live Edge Basswood

November 20, 2016 Jon Off CNC Laser, CNCROi.com News, Wood Products,

It’s incredible what can be accomplished with live edge lumber, from big things like conference tables and chairs down to iPad and phone holders… CNCROi.com can do all of it in our shop!

CNCROi.com is similar to a flowing river, our customers are the riverbed and tell us what direction they wish to take a project, what substrate we will be working in and we put the skills, equipment and expertise together to make it happen. Whether that’s wood, lamacoids, metal or a mix and match of them.

The above image made by a comic artist will be converted into an image that will be laser engraved with absolute precision onto a live edge piece of basswood using our Austrian industrial wide-format laser.

Beyond normal 2D wall plaques, we can also make 3D objects, probably an extreme example would be a huge Big Wheels which, could have just as easily been made with a few design modifications using this exact same material or out of stainless steel, that’s how we flow here!

Not only that, we can also design to any scale, for instance, say you wanted the above design to be way smaller to fit on a desk, here’s what that would look like!

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Now that we have that out-of-the-way, let’s focus on this custom live edge iPad or phone holder! By the way, we could have also made this with a never-ending amount of modifications for other applications, for instance, this would also make for a wonderfully unique chair at a larger scale!

The unique challenge using kiln dried (very important, no bugs, no warping etc… issues) live edge wood is that no two pieces are the same, alignment of a graphic is eyeballed on a per unit basis. For instance, if you want this for a corporate gift, the “center point” is roughly estimated as live edges vary unit by unit.

This unique aspect of working with REAL WOOD, provides ample opportunity to customize and personalize wood like no other material out there. For instance, if we were making this out of 11 gauge 316 stainless steel, each one of these would be the same (if that was the spec) so the annealing would be at the same spot on each. There is no “identical production” option when it comes to natural materials such as live edge.

Although trying to keep a mask on a live edge of basswood is an exercise in futility, whatever does stick does reduce the amount of sanding required after the custom laser engraving of this iPad and phone holder.

By the way, if you wanted a live edge holder like this but with details cut all the way through, inlays of various materials, metals to other wood veneers, we are able to customize and optimize to your specific specs. We do full-on custom day in and out, so nothing is out of the ordinary for us.

Before the artist drew out this comic, I told them specifically to make their lines strong and to only use black marker, you can’t laser engrave color, and the results using a laser are better if they are straight laser on and laser off, or black and white.

Fine line drawings like this come out great when laser engraved, sanded and finished on live edge wood plaque, if you want to see what something with a lot more detail looks like, watch this video so you can see both extremes of the spectrum.

So regardless of the detail, CNCROi.com can make something awesome, whether it’s live edge or Corian or Stainless Steel or any other material. We have the equipment, passion and expertise to make it all happen.

A question I get quite often from people new to the world of “live edge” is what do we do about bugs and warping. This is a VERY IMPORTANT question and that’s the why we only use wood that kiln dried. It kills any bugs, it reduces the humidity of the wood throughout and importantly, dramatically lessens the chances of warping after production.

I encourage my customers to ask me questions about the material we use and the processes we use to do their work. I don’t know everything and neither do our clients, and this exchange increases my knowledge and vice versa about the processes and materials we use.

As for knots, they are in wood products, some of our customers love them, some hate them and the rest are indifferent. Personally, I like knots as they add more uniqueness and character to a wood surface but I fully appreciate and understand both sides of this preference.

We also make custom wooden plaques and rounds in a wide variety of sizes but generally, the larger the wood piece, the most it costs not only in raw material but for production and shipment as well.

Now that our Austrian industrial wide-format laser is finished custom engraving this live edge wood plaque down to 5 nanometers of accuracy, it’s now time to begin finishing it.

Closer-up, you can see how clean the lines are that make-up this custom live edge wood plaque, consider that the laser did this line by line, not engraving it like it was drawn. Incredible repeatable precision!!!

We are also able to custom laser engrave the edge too! Having a big machine is one part of the job but being able to do edges and larger pieces with lots of thickness is just as important.

The laser engraving process on the edge is just as accurate as the front face of the other custom live edge wood plaque.

Now there’s a happy life! A little sanding will remove the smoke stains on the upper surface, there was no point masking such a small piece of live edge plank.

You can see on the surface there is lots of smoke stains on the bottom part of the image but throughout, it’s actually quite well done, the masking didn’t do a perfect job but it did do a pretty decent one. Basswood is a very soft wood as well, so sanding this is no problem, if this was Oak, then it would take a bit more leg work and elbow grease.

Putting both together, you can see how fantastic this will look, this will be sanded using our custom downdraft table that’s probably the only one in the world that’s been entirely laser cut.