Big MDF Jobs
CNCROi.com had finished lots of big MDF jobs using both our CNC laser and our CNC router, after finishing yet another huge job, I decided to share some of what I learned doing these types of jobs.
Big MDF jobs (material can be really anything in this context), have their own unique challenges over one or tens of units.
The biggest issue with large jobs is that of organization, meaning that generally it’s part of something the customer must contend with at their end especially if they are all unique like this blog’s video was.
For smaller production runs, there really is no issue about things getting mixed-up because the quantity of units is still within the realm of being easily sorted.
For instance, when you have hundreds of pieces that look similar, the customer needs to know which is what and where it goes on their project, as such, labeling is important and it must be PERMANENT.
This is an issue that we don’t need to contend with if all the parts are the same such as these gears CNCROi.com produced for a school project.
Overall, MDF is the most popular material that CNCROi.com runs through for our customers, it’s very cost effective, easy to work with and takes paint wonderfully.
When it comes to producing production runs by CNCROi.com ourselves for clients, we generally choose MDF for the same reason as our clients, it’s cost-effective and easy on the machinery.
For this specific custom big MDF job, we used our CNC router because it was the most cost-effective solution for this given project.
Although we’ve done a ton of big MDF jobs using our CNC laser, there is an exponential loss in efficiency when it comes to making large shapes or items of the thicker quality.
The one massive advantage of our CNC laser is that we can engrave a contrasting “color” in MDF regardless of the thickness that follows-through with paint, so think about making fake tile looks on your wall or dimensional imagery.
Of course, during this production run of almost a hundred full sheets 4x8ft quarter inch MDF, CNCROi.com regularly would flatten and clean-up the sacrificial board to make sure the quality was always top notch for this client.
The one thing I made absolutely sure about was to label all the parts as I was cutting them out on our machine, this was a big project and NOTHING could be missing, but even with this and careful tracking, I still recounted and checked each part 5 times just to make absolutely sure everything was done and to spec.
If you are wondering how MDF compares to other materials like metal, check-out this video that will give you a brief overview of them.
MDF is not a perfect material, but no other material is perfect either, it’s just the best material for the given job within the spec required by the customer.
These big MDF jobs are quite a bit of fun, it’s great content for our customer that we can send their way so they know how things are going at any given time, CNCROi.com has to co-ordinate with suppliers and freight and everything is amped-up across the board.
CNCROi.com has also performed lots of custom big MDF jobs that involved both engraving and cutting, using both our CNC laser and CNC router.
As to which process or machine is most efficient, don’t worry about it, CNCROi.com will figure that out and give you the results to make an educated decision upon.
MDF is hard on bits, which is why for this production run, to make sure everything is sharp and accurate we would change the bit 3 times during the whole production run, not necessary but I care quality over using a dull bit producing awful results.
Here’s a pile of this big MDF job, looks are deceiving as this was almost 2 000 pounds (900 kg) of custom cut quarter inch MDF shapes.
Whether you have a one-off or many pieces of MDF that need to be cut, contact CNCROi.com and we’ll make it for you!