Custom Live Edge Wooden Plaque
CNCROi.com makes lots of plaques across a variety of materials, wood through to stainless steel but today we’ll focus on making a custom live edge wooden plaque.
We are able to produce these wall plaques at pretty much any size and shape, depending on what our supplier has in stock regarding wood type, size and volume YOU need us to make for you. The nice thing about live edge wood is that it’s really hard to muck it up, it looks perfect and is homely in just about any environment.
In order to speed-up clean-up after our Austrian CNC industrial laser has engraved into this piece of live edge lumber, we apply a medium tack mask onto the surface. This way the dust and especially, the RESINS found naturally in the wood don’t stain the surface. There will always be some that does get under this material but by far the vast majority of it rests on this mask instead of the wood underneath.
The amount of wood vaporized off this custom live edge wooden plaque is about 1/16th inch or about 2 mm. We can technically go all the way through this with our powerful CO2 laser source but the goal here is to create a bit of depth so that it isn’t removed during the sanding that will happen after AND provide a bit of shadow to increase the contrast found on this plaque naturally from the laser burned wood at the bottom.
The entire process started with a very clean sanded piece of lumber, we have full sanding capabilities in the shop, so regardless of the wood, we are able to get exactly the best consistency possible for a project of this nature.
The darkness you see on this custom live edge wooden plaque migrating North is the resin left over from the CNC laser vaporization process. It’s a pain to remove even with power sanders, which is why the mask is applied FIRST. The darkness you see at the bottom of the engraving is the natural wood being slightly burned due to the laser source being out of focus at that depth.
The resolution we can get on custom live edge wooden plaques such as these is above 600 dpi so even fine text is easy to read though generally, anything over 300 is hard to notice. This is a piece of wood, not finely bound paper, there is a lot of give and take naturally in wood which is why projects like these come out so fantastic.
In this case, this custom live edge wooden plaque was for a wedding, so a date was a must, all these designs and other parameters are custom to the customer and in the case of wood, to the material as well. We try our absolute best to balance esthetics and customer wishes on every project we handle.
Looking at the laser engraving (with mask still on), you can clearly see on this custom live edge wooden plaque that the depth achieved also adds extra contrast to the edges, which is another reason to engrave INTO rather than just a light dusting on wood. You can also see that evil resin on the surface, it’s pretty resilient and gums up sanding tools which is another reason why we use the mask on wood.
The end results straight from the laser of this custom live edge wooden plaque already look fantastic once the paper is taken off but you can see some very light resin settled around the top of the arrow and heart so it’s onto our custom downdraft sanding table.
Taking a closer look at the arrow first before we apply some sanding on this custom live edge wooden plaque, you can see how the vapor helps to dull the resolution and sharpness of the finished piece. That’s why we sand it to highlight the incredible precision of our industrial Austrian CNC laser and to make your custom wall plaque POP to anybody who views it.
The sanding did a great job, it made the entire surface more consistent so it’s just a matter of blowing off all the dust particles from the sanding to show how awesome this custom live edge wooden plaque really is!
Amazing! This belongs in a museum but we aren’t done yet! To make it pop even more, we apply sealant on all the surfaces (front and back) on this piece of live edge timber. Why? We want to give it even more contrast, showcasing the grain of the wood and adding additional contrast.
Another reason why we seal our wooden plaques are to protect them from humidity variances and to make them easy to clean. We take our work here at CNCROi.com very seriously, top of the line laser, top of the line equipment and tools to produce the ABSOLUTE BEST results for you. We want you to have something you are proud to have or to give to somebody else!
Looking at the custom live edge wooden plaque closer yet again after the sanding and sealing, you can see how sharp the edges are on this design, our CNC laser is wicked overkill for a project like this but that’s why we use it for projects like this, because it produces crisp and incredibly accurate results that our customers love!
Are you looking for a custom wall plaque out of live edge material? How about out of Corian or metal or acrylic? We can do it all! Contact CNCROi.com right now! If you look closely at our brochure below, you’ll see another live edge wall plaque in the bottom right by the way.
