Custom Spotlight Awards: CNC Waterjet, Laser, Router & 3D Printed

Making custom spotlight awards this year was a similar process to those I made last year, but we used different materials and processes to help make sure that there were as few simularities as possible between the “old” and “new” ones.

Here’s the processes CNCROi.com used to make the custom spotlight awards for last year.

It’s kinda surprising how much the shop has evolved over the course of just one year, now, let’s focus on this year’s custom awards!

Like the previous custom spotlight awards, the process of making the wooden component was started using kiln dried wood, in this case, Douglas Fir but in the previous itineration, it was Maple.

Maple is a great looking material, so is Douglas Fir and just about any species of wood out there, the choice to go with one over the other depends on budget, seasonal and design specifications.

Where last year the shape was rectangular, this year was round, though they are roughly the same height, the round ones took up a lot less space, making the overall award smaller and as you can tell, it also had less blades on the top and overall weight was decreased as a result of all these changes.

Round, rectangular or any shape for that matter, are no problem for our CNC router, last year, CNCROi.com also had a Thermwood CNC router but it was a 20 year old machine while the “new” Thermwood is a 12 year old machine with way more tooling and machining possibilities, the function is basically the same.

You’ll also notice that last year, the custom spotlight award was made using laminated boards (made at CNCROi.com) while this year, it was one solid piece, this was because the lamination just didn’t work well with the design as you always have two sides that would be end-grain, we wanted a grain that flowed all the way “through” the wooden aspect of the custom award.

I’ve come a very long way over the past decade, when it comes to the equipment I use at CNCROi.com, here’s my very first router routing out a project I designed that would be SO EASY compared to how I did it in that video about 11 years ago.

Of course, I did the same project again using my laser once I got it, at a smaller scale, just to show how repeatable designing can be when done right using a totally different platform.

As with last year, before any work was to commence on the custom spotlight award, a series of prototypes was produced using both Douglas Fir and Balsa wood, the Balsa was more stable and denser but had no real grain pattern, while the Douglas Fir, which the customer ended-up going with, had a very strong grain structure, adding a lot more aesthetic appeal to the custom spotlight award.

Whether CNCROi.com‘s CNC router was going through Maple, Balsa or Douglas Fir, it makes no difference, it produced a nice accurate shape of what needed to be fabricated.

There were of course some fuzzies but at the end of the day, it makes no difference, as a lot of sanding is required for the laser etching aspect of it anyways, this is removed by default in the course of making the custom spotlight award.

Although a far simpler shape, the above video shows you the power of laser engraving wood, producing directed charcoal is a great way to add contrast to just about any species, and these wooden bases were to be laser engraved using the rotary and on the bottom.

To make absolutely sure that nothing moved during production, a slight skin was left on the bottom of each custom spotlight awards during the routing process which was then cut out using the bandsaw and sanded down flush.

Above are the unsanded initial prototypes of the custom spotlight awards, this allows the customer to test fit, form and structure of what we’d produce in larger quantities at CNCROi.com.

There are several issues when it comes to making round awards, the first is stability, these awards are high yet narrow at the bottom, so weight distribution is an important factor, if it’s too top heavy, it’s unstable.

Just about any shape can be routed out of wood, the control of depth is a major feature when it comes to working with it across a whole bunch of applications.

The other challenge with producing a round based award is any asymetry is immediately noticeable, meaning, if we routed one of the steps at the top of the wooden base slightly off, your eye would notice it right away.

There is no getting away with anything when it comes to producing a round award, unlike just about any other shape that we could have fabricated these designer designed custom spotlight awards at CNCROi.com.

Suffice it to say, there was A LOT of saw dust produced during the fabrication of these awards, the coarser stuff was made by the router but lots of finer dust is produced during the various stages of sanding them down.

I’ve been working with real wood, live edge and otherwise, for years, each species has its own quirks that need to be accounted for but it’s really a wonderful material for a whole bunch of different applications.

Making all the custom spotlight awards from one piece of lumber has its own challenges but the advantage of this approach was consistency in pattern, color and density that would have been a lot more difficult if they would have been made from multiple boards.

You can start to gain appreciation of the very strong grain pattern that Douglas Fir has when it came to these custom spotlight awards.

After the bases are produced, the next step is to begin making the ornamental tops using the waterjet cutting process, there is no depth control with a waterjet, just like laser cutting, unlike the router where there is a two-way feedback on the Z-axis.

The spec for the stainless steel was 304 and the grade was 2B, the reason for not going with a brushed finish is because these custom spotlight awards are to be painted, we could have gone with regular mild steel but due to the potential for rust, even after painting, stainless steel was the more logical choice for this project.

CNCROi.com uses stainless steel for an endless variety of projects for our customers, it’s a fantastic material, especially when it comes to applications where you want a bit more corrosion resistance.

It’s easy to tell the difference between 2B and #4 finish when it comes to stainless steel, the dull grey tells you it’s 2B while a brushed surface, that’s generally masked, is #4.

Each of these stainless steel blades is to be sanded anyways, so I’m not too concerned about potential scratches on the surfaces of the custom spotlight awards steel components, the paint also does a wonderful job of evening-out the surface of the steel as well.

After sanding, it’s time to line these stainless steel blades and paint them, over the course of several days, using many coats, to give a consistent look to each one of these custom spotlight awards.

Metal does accept paint relatively well, but it must be the proper paint, otherwise, it quickly peels away with zero adhesion.

Painting metal works surprisingly well, and is relatively durable compared to the alternatives such as powder coating.

There are endless options when it comes to paints nowadays, and the reason why so many extra blades were produced and painted, was because I wanted to have the pick of the litter, the same approach was used with the wooden bases of the custom spotlight awards and even the 3D printed aspect of them, any small imperfections were thus weeded out before assembly could happen at CNCROi.com.

There were several challenging aspects of these custom spotlight awards, the mating of three different materials made using four different CNC platforms was relatively straight forward, as the accuracy and precision between them is pretty much identical.

Most of our rotary type work is actually done on bottles, but the same concept works just as well with wood and other materials as well.

The challenge came from keeping the files in check, proofing everything to make sure the right thing was cut, etched and finished in the proper way across so many different materials.

The 3D printed aspect of these custom spotlight awards was made by the designer, though I was doing the final assembly, that’s the black part you see inside the awards, where the purpose of the cavity was to give a method of holding the 3D printed part while at the time time, giving a good hold to the stainless steel blades.

Although not as extensive, the above video shows you the resolution that’s possible when it comes to laser engraving wood of just about any species at CNCROi.com.

The finished awards came out fantastic, it took a crazy amount of sanding to get things this consistent, as you have to remember, endgrain has a different look, feel and structure to surface gain when it comes to wood, regardless of species.

Douglas Fir grain was really accentuated by the tung oil finish I applied at CNCROi.com on these awards, there were multiple coats of that as well as sanding inbetween each successive application.

The one award in the front with the double gold blades was from a different board of Douglas Fir, hence the different grain pattern, color and texture comapred to all the others.

Looking for custom awards? Contact CNCROi.com right now!