Custom Christmas Display: CNC Laser & CNC Router
I’m tired of the traditional Christmas tree in the living room so I decided to make my own custom Christmas display and getting my mom to paint it for me.
When ever I have large or complicated projects to take-on, I prefer to make scale models to make sure the design fits as I envisioned as it saves a lot of time overall if there is a mistake.
The finished custom Christmas display will be made out of 3/4″ furniture grade plywood but to test this out, I’m using 1/8″ MDF, if that works, so will the larger scaled version.
I used MDF extensively at CNCROi.com for a whole host of custom jobs, it’s very easy to work with, can be cut with the laser or router and is an easily available material available in a variety of thicknesses.
Inlays are no problem for CNCROi.com either, it’s incredible what CNCROi.com can produce for businesses and individuals.
Why am I using the CNC laser instead of the CNC router to cut out this scaled model at CNCROi.com? Because it’s faster at this scale and gives me a tighter fit.
A CNC router needs to make extra space at the ends of inner corners so pieces fit into one another, for the laser, I can cut sharp inner corners, so I don’t need to do this extra bit of programming, notice the top image shows a perfect rectangle cut out of the bottom? Not possible at this scale using a round CNC router bit.
At this scale, the CNC laser cuts through material just as fast as our CNC router, the thicker the material, the more this migrates into CNC router cutting faster beyond this thickness of MDF.
The carvings we do can be done with our CNC router or CNC laser, sharp and defined or large and in charge, we can make it at CNCROi.com.
This custom Christmas display can be endlessly customized however I want, in fact, I’m thinking of making a display for every holiday or season in my living room as this job was so much fun to make.
The finished CNC laser scaled down model was done getting cut and next step was dry assembly at CNCROi.com, I put glue in it afterwards but it wasn’t necessary, I have my tolerances down to a T when it comes to this thin MDF.
There were a few very slight tweaks needed to the laser cut model to improve fit, form and function so after those were completed, it was time to scale the model back up to 3/4″ thickness material and cut it out at CNCROi.com using our full sheet CNC router.
Strangely enough, the cutting time for our CNC router was roughly the same for this plywood as the 1/8″ MDF was for our CNC laser… as I mentioned, each machine has their + and – when it comes to production, it’s knowing these and being able to play with them that takes skill.
A custom display can also have integrated carvings, so the details can also be 3D’ed throughout.
There is one slight design change I did after cutting this out on the CNC router, as my mom was going to paint this, she found out the outline of the snowman for the custom Christmas display didn’t leave a lot of room for the paint so I cut another one out without any cut-outs and she did a great job filling it up.
My original idea for this custom Christmas display was to just spray paint everything in solid colors but then I approached my mom to see what she thought of it and she took on the job, it looks a million times better as a result.
CNC routerring was done at CNCROi.com using a quarter inch bit, this gave me the tightness I needed for the cutouts in the Merry Christmas stencil part of this custom Christmas display.
Using a quarter inch bit means a quarter inch of material is removed from the path between the scrap wood and the material I want to use, you can see it in these pictures in the amount of material missing after the bit passes over it.
There is more than one way to hold items up that CNCROi.com produces for displays.
I have a powerful vacuum system for my CNC router which means I don’t need to screw this plywood into the spoil board or use tabs to keep things in place during cutting this custom Christmas display at CNCROi.com.
The custom Christmas display is now finished at CNCROi.com, doing a dry fit will confirm that everything fits perfectly – that’s when I noticed that it was best to make the snowman not as an outline but filled.
You can see how great the plywood looks as is, another option I was thinking of was actually just leaving it to look like this with lights.
There are a few fuzzies to sand but otherwise, this custom Christmas display look fantastic, the fit is perfect and you can see how much bigger it is to the scaled model that I laser cut at CNCROi.com earlier.
We can mix and match materials as well, if you want some or all of your custom display out of metal or plastic or whatever, no problem for us.
You can see this custom Christmas display at a few angles, what’s wonderful about 3D displays like this is that it changes as you move around it, that’s the effect I was after with this project at CNCROi.com.
After my mom’s magic with her paint brushes you can see how the above custom Christmas display transforms dramatically, it looks awesome!
Moving around my custom Christmas display, you can truly appreciate how cool it is to have this instead of a boring Christmas tree, it’s personalized to things I like and want.
The possibilities that are possible with CNCROi.com when it comes to making custom displays of any size, design, material are endless.
Whether you want custom displays that are small enough to fit on a desk or big enough to fit a person into, CNCROi.com can produce it to any spec you want.
Turning the lights off, you can see how great this custom Christmas display looks with Christmas lighting, I’ll be adding more.
Need a custom display for your business or personal use? Any size, design, shape or material combination, CNCROi.com can make it and ship it right to your door.