Custom Live Edge Wood Plank: CNC Laser Engraving & Extreme Finishing
Custom live edge wood plank CNC laser engraving makes for a fantastic gift and amazing signage, CNCROi.com gives you unlimited design options!
What we generally do, if time allows within our customer’s timeline and budget, is give them the choice of a few different live edge boards (in this case) and they can pick the one that will be custom CNC laser engraved to their spec, with words, images or like this case, a mix of both.
As live edge wood planks have lots of variations, I enjoy giving customers the option to choose which one they prefer. These are REAL kiln dried live edge planks, they are like snow flakes, no two are alike. This gives each one their distinct beauty and features that makes our industrial production of these custom wood planks as unique as what we do on them.
In this case, our customer picked the second board, I asked them permission before posting this blog and video as generally, our production isn’t shared but this came out so beautifully, I wanted to share the production with others interested in custom live edge CNC laser engraving.
The masking added to the surface will limit (but not eliminate) the amount of clean-up required after our Austrian industrial wide-format laser has done its magic. The smoke and vapor can be stick and the natural gums in this natural live edge wood plank can reek havoc on sanding paper especially with far more sappy wood thank this natural basswood.
The design and measurements all happen before production, CNCROi.com doesn’t just throw images and text anywhere on this live edge wood plank, the design is sorted and approved far before any actual industrial laser production is started in our shop.
The goal with laser engraving live edge basswood isn’t to go DEEP but to achieve a nice balanced engraving depth and a caramel burning at the bottom of the engraving. We could easily engrave right through this board, so our limiting factor isn’t mechanical but esthetics.
Additionally, industrial CNC laser engraving this live edge wood plank is done onto a pre-sanded surface to make sure the density is even as lasers produce variable results based on wood density, the higher the density, the less depth is achieved as our laser has a consistent tube, using the same power across the entire project surface.
Taking a closer look at the image being engraved in this live edge plank and the words underneath, you can see how precise our Austrian CNC laser is, everything is sharp, in focus and precisely engraved within 5 nanometers of placement from our design file.
If you are wondering what the words are saying, the quote that’s right of the wooden house being laser engraved is as follows:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts
of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came
to die, discover that I had not lived.
Thoreau
The goal with this type of live edge work is not to be in a hurry, slow and steady wins the race and you can see the smoke build-up isn’t anything extreme as the focus is on quality, not depth of the engraving.
I’ve spent a lot of time fine tuning my engraving abilities on high quality artwork, this is certainly not the type of project that you want to rush as the more you respect the wood, the better the results are for our customers.
This live edge wood plank engraving is coming together very nicely, on the right, the engraving area is roughly 8.5 inches while on the left, it’s 7.5 inches, again, that’s why measurements are done before production, especially with “live” natural material, as if I would have aligned this based on the top surface, the entire engraving would look crooked.
CNC laser engraving produces a nice darker engraving compared to an industrial CNC router, which we also have, that just removes material. Each machine has their costs and benefits, it’s optimizing production for the application at hand that takes experience to properly achieve.
The darkness achieved with our laser is dependent on a number of factors when it comes to natural wood, it will never be pitch black like you’d see from paint filling or other finishing processes.
As for the resolution we can achieve on natural live edge wood, it depends on the type of wood, if this was walnut or oak, which is a denser wood species, we can achieve more resolution but at the end of the day, regardless of species, wood looks amazing after CNCROi.com has put your design onto it.
Live edge wood has lots of variations in bark, grain and color variation patterns, that’s what makes all this type of work all the more beautiful as these little variations, even with knots and other “imperfections” give you something as unique as the material at hand.
Now that the laser engraving on this live edge plank is finished, you can see the smoke pattern going upwards on the letters and the graphic, if it wasn’t for this protective masking, this would be on the wood itself.
Looking closely at the image, you can also see how much smoke is over the protective masking, the challenge here is there are very small areas where there is barely a fraction of a mm or inch of material left after being engraved, these little bits like to break off during post processing.
Looking at the letters closer-up, you can also see all the smoke patterns on this wood, it’s hard to see, but there is beautiful grain patterns on the surface of this live edge wood plank included the engraved areas.
Here’s what the live edge wood plank looks like as son as the protective masking was taken off, there is almost no smoke on there but to do an AMAZING job on this for our customer, this will require about half an hour of sanding.
I take amazing pride in my work, if you look at it up close, you will not see any smoke stains on the surface ANYWHERE. That requires looking over this with a fine tooth comb, close-up and from a distance to make sure no small detail was missed.
You have to look very closely at the image above to see the very minor resin build-up on the surface that found its way underneath of the protective masking. Again, no big deal, and dramatically less than if I wouldn’t have used it.
The reason why these results look so spectacular on this live edge plank are due to the time put into this work before the CNC laser engraving and after.
The laser does its magic but the time taken around it is what transforms something nice to something amazing you want to pass on for generations to come.
The most extensive industrial engraving on this live wood plank was the graphic itself, but you can see from the image below how wonderfully it has been cleaned-up without any laser stains what-so-ever.
Additionally, even the small areas with a very small surface didn’t break off.
You want amazing results on wood? You can’t force it, working with wood it artistry and you have to work with the material, not against or into it.
The work on this graphic took lots of optimization, I hope this helps to show you that most of the work done isn’t even documented in this blog or video post but it’s what allowed this work to come out so great.
Just look at the incredible quality of the top surface after careful and precise sanding, there are no smoke stains at all, and the edges are nicely burned as well, which provides even more contrast.
This live edge blank is finished, the next step is one final light sanding and then finishing it with a seal, that will protect the wood and improve the contrast of the engraving, giving it even more beauty and pop.
The shine from the seal finally gives this live edge wood plank a final touch to make this spectacular! The shine only occurs where the laser didn’t engrave, which provides even more contrast to the engraving.
Close-up, you can see how the image on this live edge wood plank just looks awesome and you can even follow the grain pattern through the entirety of the plank, engraved or not.
The edge quality of the engraving is only possible using expensive and high quality lenses, a laser machine where the tube itself costs more than most people’s entire laser machines and together, the results are consistent and repeatable.
Are you looking for custom live edge wood planks and rounds? Contact CNCROi.com right now!
