Custom Sycamore Live Edge Awards

I’ve made may custom corporate awards but this was the first time I made custom sycamore live edge awards and the results were spectacular… was so proud of how they all came out.

Due to NDA though, I couldn’t show what was made but I made an extra, as mentioned in my video, with my logo to give you an idea of what was produced, these custom sycamore live edge awards had laser engraving on both sides, hence only showing the profiles.

It’s amazing how tools I bought years ago are still working great in the shop, but the volumes and types of projects that I’m doing at CNCROi.com are growing and I plan on replacing these two sometime this year, though keeping them for backup or other purposes… company growth is fun but the equipment I’m approaching the limits in production that these can offer me and my customers.

Of course, if live edge isn’t your thing, that’s fine, we are endlessly flexible when it comes to creative options on any material, plastic through metal.

As these are custom sycamore live edge awards, they start off as slabs of live edge sycamore, kiln dried of course, which CNCROi.com has plenty of, in a variety of species, at the shop for just these types of occasions.

Compared to many of my other projects at the shop, the CNC was only used at the very end, all the prep work for these custom sycamore live edge awards needed to be done with hand and power tools before the laser could put the finishing touches to personalize each award.

The unique spec of this specific job was that the customer wanted to keep the bark on the edge of the awards, as this is the first thing that gets damaged and/or removed during the various processes involved with getting things to this stage, this wasn’t the easiest requirement to achieve.

You can also mix and match different materials with CNCROi.com, whether it’s wood and plastic, steel with lamacoids or whatever.

The awards were all roughly the size of printer paper, 8.5″ x 11″, and as a result, having wider boards then necessary, I had the luxury of choosing which side of the bark looked the best throughout the cutting and processing part of this custom sycamore live edge awards production cycle at CNCROi.com.

As nothing is ever straight, parallel or square with live edge, I made myself a little MDF template, laser cut, that I could just lay over the the live edge and make my cut lines from which I would then follow with my amazing skill saw.

This method meant I didn’t have to measure anything, which would be a source of error, and allowed me to orientate the template to get the best bark and straightness possible for each and every custom sycamore live edge award that I was individually cutting out for this job.

A popular combination of materials at the shop is wood and polycarbonate, or bullet proof glass, it just has a great weight and feel to it.

I did this entire job in several batches, just to make sure that I wasn’t forgetting anything and as the laser was the slowest process among all of these processes, I could load that up while doing the next batch with the power tools.

This skill saw has cut a crazy amount of wood, and continued to perform admirably at CNCROi.com, but I’m due for a larger industrial table saw that’s a lot more stable… same with my sander, it’s great for what it is but its days are numbered as it was never built to handle this type of heavy workload.

Throughout the cutting and sanding process for these custom sycamore live edge awards, I stalled both machines, Sycamore might sound great but it’s a hardwood and this is pretty thick stuff, almost 2″ thick, right at the limit of both machines.

If you really want a truly unique masterpiece for your awards, CNCROi.com can design through fabricate even the most intricate designs using the power of 3D animation and other visualization tools.

When it comes to hardwoods, they are a challenge with any pro-consumer power tool but as they get thicker, bigger and the volumes increase, their limitations for an industrial setting start to become more and more noticeable, so I’m slowly making room in the shop to expand my woodworking capabilities with more capable machinery.

Sycamore cuts like a dream though, as does the sanding, it’s a hardwood with the perfect density for this type of project, it isn’t too hard to chip and snipe, and not too soft to weight nothing, you want awards with gravitas.

After I cut and sanded the first batch of custom sycamore live edge awards, I’d throw them into the laser and start on the next batch, that’s what’s great about having synergies in a shop, what would take several people to do can be done by one at CNCROi.com.

When it comes to the table saw, unlike the skill saw, it cuts at 90 degrees without any kerf so that’s why I left a bit of line around the awards when I initially cut them as I knew I’d have to cut and sand things flush anyways to remove the kerf.

If you want something entirely made out of stainless steel for a wall plaque to give-out, we can do that too.

Finally after all this work making the blanks for the custom sycamore live edge awards, it was time to laser engrave both sides of each and every one of them – again, due to NDA, I’m only showing the engraving of one side of one award made from a piece of scrap in the shop to show you what laser engraved Sycamore looks like.

As with the custom sycamore live edge awards, I laser engraved the area twice, this creates the perfect depth and contrast for a job of this nature and then clean-up is easily done with an orbital sander… another tool I’m quickly outgrowing with the volume and types of jobs I’m doing at CNCROi.com.

What’s great about laser engraving is that you can follow the grain from laser engraved to not areas, making each engraving really neat looking and unique.

After the laser engraving was finished on all these custom sycamore live edge awards, the next step was sanding them all and afterwards, adding tung oil to all the surfaces.

The tung oil adds a lot more warmth to the wood, replacing the bland while look with a silky buttery dark brown which just looks fantastic, these pictures really do not do it justice.

Need custom corporate awards? Contact CNCROi.com right now!