Custom Small Plywood Signage
Custom small plywood signage using our CNC router (in this case) is a great way to make something that looks great and can be easily painted to resemble any material you want it to be, from plastic to metal, very cost effectively.
This custom small plywood signage is made using 3/4″ furniture grade plywood, it’s sanded on both sides and is mostly free of voids within the inner layers of glue and wood pieces, which gives it a lot more rigidity but this comes at a higher price of course.
The most challenging part of this project was actually the small pieces that were left over after cutting out the inside parts, they are like stencils, lots of little parts, and they can damage the dust system, so I ended-up turning the system on and off to avoid sucking big chunks of wood into my impellers.
Real solid wood signs are a great option for outdoor use, but also look great inside.
CNCROi.com has worked with plywood and CNCs for almost 20 years, by far the thickness we use the most in the shop is 1/4″ plywood, it has the perfect weight to strength to aesthetic but for bigger jobs, like this custom small plywood signage, we generally default to 3/4″ as the size lends itself better to a thicker grade of plywood.
In these pictures, you can start to see the little pieces of wood left over from the CNC routing out of this custom small plywood signage, no hold down method can hold these down against a powerful extraction vacuum system, hence turning the system on and off repeatedly to suck up dust but not enough force to suck these bits up as well.
Corian also makes for fantastic signage, especially if it’s paint filled afterwards for additional contrast.
When it comes to CNC routing, pretty much any design profile works, and having multiple machine platforms allows CNCROi.com the flexibility of using the best equipment for the given job at hand.
The reason CNCROi.com uses the router for this specific custom small plywood signage project rather than our laser, which could have done this BTW, was speed, the router was by far the faster alternative, and the spec of the job was so that using a round diameter bit worked totally fine for this material.
With all the equipment we have at CNCROi.com, this exact same signage could have been made from anything, from acrylic to metal to lamacoids to whatever you can imagine, including titanium.
The challenge with projects such as these is picking the best material to accomplish what the client wants within the time and budget constraints that are always present in anything we do at CNCROi.com.
When it comes to signage, there are almost endless options when it comes to engraving and cutting the perfect sign for your given application.
Each material, like each machine, has its cost and benefits when it comes to production speed, quality and fit/finish but luckily, you don’t need to know any of this to get CNCROi.com to make things, you have a budget and a project at hand and I’ll suggest what works best for the given project at hand.
As with the vast majority of the project we do at CNCROi.com, we cut out the inside parts, or engrave them if needed, before the finished project is actually cut out of the given material, in this case, it’s a custom small plywood signage but it could have been anything else as well.
The edge quality is fantastic, I generally use a new bit for jobs like this because the cost of the bit is trivial compared to the overall requirements of the project and I’ve cut enough things with a dull bit in the past to know that sharp is ALWAYS better!
You may be wondering why I don’t have any hold downs or screws or anything to keep this sheet from moving during the production the custom small plywood signage, that’s because I’m using the vacuum system, this is a fantastic addition I added to my Shopbot years ago at CNCROi.com and it has made life so easy since then.
Of course, CNCROi.com can also carve out dimensional signage out of materials like Corian or wood.
The value of the inside parts of this custom small plywood signage is zero after the project is complete, they took the brunt of the router carving these parts out and as such, have nicks and gouges in them as they were essentially loose without anything holding them in place while the rest of the sign was stable and pristine.
The size of the sheet that this 4 x 8 ft, so it basically covered the entire bed of this router so the vacuum system worked fantastic for the cutting process of the custom small plywood signage at CNCROi.com.
As you can see, the cutting went flawlessly, I was very happy with the results and the customer loved it when they got it, they have since painted it and are using it in their home.
Wood signage, whether it’s from plywood or hardwood or even softwood, has a great feel to it that literally no other material can provide.
When it comes to custom signage, we can make it as big or as small as you want, in literally any volume you want, from one-offs to thousands, whatever you need, CNCROi.com can make it!
Here’s the finished custom small plywood signage but with the inside parts still in there, the saw dust makes for a pretty good support for bits and pieces until the sign is lifted off the table of the CNC router at CNCROi.com.
Without requiring support for the inside parts, you can see how clean the result has been for this custom small plywood signage, everything just looks fantastic!
Need custom signage? Contact CNCROi.com right now!