Custom Moose Key Holder: CNC Laser Engraved and Cut Whitewood

I keep losing my keys in the shop, so it was time to make our own custom wall mounted moose key holder using a piece of scrap 3/4″ or 18 mm solid whitewood.

Something that makes working at CNCROi.com so much fun is that any ideas I have to simplify my life are quickly built and shared with all you guys, there are endless opportunities when it comes to making something both useful and a creative expression of our capabilities.

Generally I use pine, I just prefer the grain pattern as it isn’t so extreme as it is in whitewood, producing a more consistent engraving and it’s also a bit more “chippy” for the CNC router as well.

This piece of scrap whitewood was a piece of scrap from another fun project I did a while back, a Valentine’s Box.

The good thing about scrap at CNCROi.com is that it’s still very useful material, it’s just rare that we need a small piece for a customer project, thus all these hundreds of demonstrations both blog posts and videos are a great way to use it.

I’ve gone Moose hunting with my uncles before and it was great fun spending a few days in the forest tracking and going around in various types of ATVs.

Something that I learn each time I make new woodworking projects is how to further optimize both my creative and production processes.

You’ll notice that the laser lines are slightly less prominent in this Moose inspired wall mounted key holder than in the “World Is Mine” pallet project I did just a few days ago.

Key holders, especially CUSTOM KEY HOLDERS are yet another product vertical that CNCROi.com can make endless versions of using just about any material and they are small and useful enough to be personalized however you want them to be.

If you like fishing, we can make a fishing key holder, if you like flying, we can make a plane inspired wall mounted key holder and if you like the beach… well, you get the idea!

Not only that, we can also make repeatable productions of these as well, so if you ran a company that sold dentures, we can make custom wall mounted key holders in the shape of a happy smile that is personalized for key suppliers or customers with their names or their invoices if they are late paying them!

CNCROi.com has PASSION, EXPERTISE and EQUIPMENT to transform you ideas and concepts into physical products in just about any volume and across a huge swath of price ranges and materials.

CNCROi.com isn’t just a CNC shop, we also have a full woodworking and metal working shop, which means if you wanted these custom wall mounted key holders in the shape of a wrench with welded nails to hold your keys out of 316 stainless steel, NO PROBLEM!

Not only that, we can then anneal or etch your logo or whatever information you want onto / into the surface.

There are endless branding options when it comes to CNCROi.com as we work from raw materials through to finished product, in this case, I wanted the grain to be going vertical, no problem… as I had the forest in the foreground and background thus it made more sense to use the power of grain to emphasize and add “free detail” to help really make this custom wall mounted key holder.

The darkening can also be modified based on speed and power settings from our Austrian wide-format industrial CNC laser.

If you wanted this wall mounted key holder to be made out of Maple, Cedar, Pine, Mahogany, Bloodwood, Pecan… literally any type of wood, CNCROi.com has experience to produce the best wooden product for your needs if you wanted it to be made from a tree.

Whitewood has a very similar consistency to Pine, it’s just as brittle but strong, the only difference is that it doesn’t engrave as relatively dark as Pine.

Another project I’ve used Whitewood for was another solution for the shop, a coin holder that stays together without using any glue.

Just contrast the above Whitewood to the custom Oak name badge below, using different species produces different results in grain, color variation and depth.

Unlike metal, wood is a wonderful material due to all the free detail you get when it’s engraved and cut using our laser.

Some woods produce better contrast or variations than others, of course, something made out of Oak will cost more than the same design and spec made out of Pine or Whitewood, so budget is something that’s important to sort out initially.

After the engraving of the Whitewood is complete, with the background being darker than the trees in the foreground, it’s time to cut it out.

3/4″ or 18 mm thick Whitewood doesn’t stand a chance against our powerful dual-sourced industrial laser.

You can see how dirty the surface of the engraved Whitewood looks, that’s soot and smoke that’s caused by the burning process of the Whitewood when this custom wall mounted key holder is engraved.

The back of this custom key holder is also burned, but just where it’s cut through, that’s why both the front a the back of this is masked, it just dramatically speeds-up the production process as a lot less time is spent sanding.

Of course, there are some applications where we want burning on purpose even with projects CNCROi.com has done using our CNC router.

Having more than one machine type and function allows us incredible versatility when it comes to producing the ultimate branded product or item for CNCROi.com customers.

As it’s the summer, I don’t use our custom downdraft table very much as just using a fan next to the large door in the back of our shop is just as good at removing dust from lungs and shop.

So yes, CNCROi.com can also make custom furniture!

Above picture of the Moose inspired custom wall mounted key holder with the masking and below is after a quick sanding with our orbital that we’ve used a lot!

What’s really nice about Whitewood is that it sands nice and white for incredible contrast, it’s also very soft so so sanding is also a very quick process.

Whitewood is also very good for signage, though I go through a lot more Pine in the shop than Whitewood but here’s an idea of what can be achieved if you have something that requires high-resolution work.

Here’s what the almost finished custom Moose key holder, if you look at the bottom, you can see the reference holes for the nails I made using the laser.

This Moose just looks awesome, the contrast is perfect and the grain of the natural solid Whitewood, when everything just works perfectly together, it’s magic!

Those nails are from a pallet I broke down about a week ago, these nails and nice and rusted, which is perfect as they will not only hold the keys but also totally blend in the engraving, making them appear transparent.

There is one problem though, they are too long, not an issue, an angle grinder that we use with our metalwork at CNCROi.com will cut them down to size in no time.

Don’t worry if they look rough, they will be nailed into the custom Moose inspired wall mounted key holder after the holes are drilled to prevent wood splitting.

You can barely see the nails, once placed in the Moose key holder in the image below, PERFECT!

The only thing that’s left is to screw this key holder into the wall in the CNCROi.com shop!

WOW! That looks awesome! Of course, the cars below are also CNC laser cut using the same machine as is the sign on the right.

Need something custom? Contact CNCROi.com right now!