Custom Dragon Carving: CNC Carved MDF Relief Pattern

Making a custom dragon carving was a lot of fun at CNCROi.com using my ShopBot Desktop, something I could never carve by hand came alive thanks to modern technology!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqYoLUu8elc/

When it comes to CNC carving relief patterns, the process is relatively simple, start with a grayscale image and then tell the CNC router that white or black is the material surface then get your bits in order to start carving away!

Although CNCROi.com has a far larger ShopBot PRSAlpha just a few meters away from our ShopBot Desktop, for these little jobs, this is just as industrial in capability and precision as it’s bigger cousin.

The first step in carving a custom dragon carving is using a roughing bit to remove as much material as possible from the surface, the results might look rough but the goal is to give the next bit, the finishing bit, as little material to remove in order to create a defined image so that it can run as fast as possible.

For this specific custom dragon carving, I had in mind to paint it a mirror silver, so very high peaks and low valleys were required to create abundant surface area for the cool esthetic I was after with this project at CNCROi.com.

CNCROi.com also does dimensional carvings for items like custom house number signs using solid surface materials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzScZjA4v1I/

The carving clearance bit is doing a wonderful job, you can see how jagged things are looking, borderline pixelated, but that’s fine, it means I’m as close to the possible tolerances needed for the next bit, if everything looks smooth after doing a clearance pass, something is wrong, especially for a highly contrasting relief such as this custom dragon carving.

I used a quarter inch end mill to do the initial clearance pass on this half inch MDF, the next step is to switch to a 1/8″ ball nose with a 10% step-over, very slow yes, but produces wonderful and consistent results thanks to ShopBot’s rigid gantry.

Now we’ll stop making chips and start making MDF chips at CNCROi.com as the machine slowly works its way up revealing the custom dragon carving hidden underneath.

Carving can be done at CNCROi.com using a variety of processes and machines, it all depends on the image, project spec, timeline and customer preferences when it comes to how we go about carving stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyofm2-pJ3o/

You can already see the smoothness that’s being achieved with this ball nose bit, and an idea of how little material is being removed in the process of completing a finishing pass, technically CNCROi.com could have started with a bigger end mill and work it’s way through a set of 3-5 bits before getting down to this ball nose but I like my things simple and I can run this job while doing others in the shop so timing isn’t as much an issue.

Keep in mind there is a fine layer of dust on this custom dragon carving, even with the vacuum system sucking as much dust and debris from the surface as possible, that’s why you see those fuzzies.

You can now really start to appreciate the hard work the finishing bit is doing on this custom dragon carving as it works its way up the design, and looking at the edge, start to appreciate just how much material was removed and how strong a relief pattern this dragon really has.

Carving isn’t limited to wood and CNC routers, we regularly carve into rubber to make custom rubber stamps of all sizes and shapes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eif1VIiGbvY/

I really enjoy carving with my CNC router, it’s a wonderful machine, works incredibly smooth and is just a pleasure to produce awesome projects with to share with others and customers alike at CNCROi.com.

When it comes to carving MDF, the process is seamless, you don’t even see the tooling marks unless you really search for them, the general public wouldn’t have a clue that this was made by a machine unless you pointed out to them what they were to look for.

When it comes to carving, your options are endless, this might be a custom dragon carving but it could have just as easily been a street sign, a family portrait or anything else you can think of, literally any high contrast image works great, especially if it’s black and white.

Of course, self-portraits aren’t complete without a carving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jvgg3ncdLw/

You can now see the head in the custom dragon carving in the middle of the picture below, and how shadows, even without any paint, are really starting to make this image pop big time at CNCROi.com.

Looking at the custom dragon carving from another angle, you can see the ridges and the amazing amount of detail that’s possible using CNC router carving to create physical images from digital snapshots.

Almost done this awesome custom dragon carving, I plan on using silver mirror metallic paint on this relief pattern, I think the fake stainless steel look will look great, until I get a machine able to carve the real thing out of the real material at CNCROi.com.

Even prehistoric scenery works wonders with CNC carving, we aren’t limited to just fantastical Chinese dragons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwZQ8Z8fOj0/

I had a lot of fun making this custom dragon carving, as with every other project I do at CNCROi.com, there are always lessons to be learned to improve on the design and fabrication process and once this job was done, I couldn’t wait to jump in the saddle yet again to do it all over again with another design.

Here’s what the finished carving looks like, of course, a larger version is possible using my full sheet machine no problem, but you’d swear this was done by hand, and not a machine – really proud of this custom dragon carving.

After the magic of paint, you can see how incredible this custom dragon carving looks like, with the reflectivity and strong relief pattern, this stands out anywhere I put it.

A closer look reveals a few issues with the MDF popping-up in some areas from core particle expansion but that’s no problem, easily solved by just doing this in hard or softwood, as a proof of concept, this more than works for my purposes at CNCROi.com.

Need custom carving? Contact CNCROi.com right now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwkHYjqDU-M/