Custom Eiffel Tower Retirement

I designed this custom Eiffel Tower YEARS ago after wanting a model that was dead-easy to assemble and carry around.

The design is actually very accurate to the original as well, as this checked all the right boxes, I decided it would be among the first models I cut in my original shop at CNCROi.com.

This video below my Austrian CNC laser cutting the model out and then me doing a dry run assembly.

I didn’t apply any glue as I wanted a friction fit, meaning the wood itself would hold it together as otherwise, it would be too easy to damage during transport to various trade shows across North America.

As for trade shows, here’s an idea of my booths in various places using the Eiffel Tower to bring people in.

And if you are curious, here’s the same model out of solid steel, it’s dramatically heavier and stronger than my original 1/8th inch or 3 mm MDF Eiffel Tower.

Here’s the video of me assembling and permanently gluing this version of the Eiffel Tower that I cut years ago and designed years before that.

When I started CNCROi.com, nobody knew who I was regarding the industry I was entering, people knew me as the CNC King who sold digital files for almost a decade online, not a custom CNC shop owner.

This Eiffel Tower model was slightly warped over the years of travel and humidity changes, as a result that more than anything, made me want to retire the model.

CNCROi.com also doesn’t attend nearly as many trade shows as before so it was time to use it as a showcase in our shop.

This Eiffel Tower was very easy to assemble, that’s how I designed it and having put it together and taken it apart endless times helped as well.

The weights used on the top of the model help to keep everything down during the glue drying process.

This model might be made out of very thin and weak material but the way I designed it produced an incredibly rigid and strong superstructure that, even when filled with holes, still held-up very good to pressure.

There were some elements that were lost though during the years of travel, instead of cutting them anew, I decided to just leave the Eiffel Tower model as-is.

It has bumps and bruises and again, I didn’t want to cover that up either so no paint was applied anywhere on the model.

The very nice thing about MDF is that everything dries very fast and pretty strong, MDF is basically stronger cardboard or weaker wood so for model making, its light weight and perfect for very fine details.

This is because MDF is a pretty consistent material, though it does warp over time from humidity or temperature changes, otherwise, it lasted far longer than I though it would.

Once the first level at the bottom is glued together, it was just a process, like the original, of waiting for things to settle then build the next level up and then do it all over again working my up to the top.

During the build process of this Eiffel Tower, I got a massive contract that necessitated us moving to a far bigger shop to handle the volume, as a result, half of these pictures and videos were done in our old shop and the other in this new one.

Clamps are always in short supply when it comes to making a design such as this stick while the glue dries but being a friction fit model meant I only needed a few of them and rubber bands to keep it all together.

And now you see the completed Eiffel Tower design, all glued-up and ready for retirement in our custom CNC shop.

I’m still trying to figure out where to put this, our shop is HUGE now but I want to show this in the videos so I’ll have to make a mount somewhere in CNCROi.com to help showcase it.

If you are looking for a custom model, any size or material, contact me at CNCROi.com and we’ll make it for you!

Oh yeah, you can see the same Eiffel Tower prominently displayed on our brochure!