Custom Wood Blocks: Douglas Fir Routering & Finishing

Using Douglas Fir, let’s build some custom wood blocks for my son Simon at  CNCROi.com!

Simon’s at the age now where he likes to build things “UP” and as a result, the magnetic blocks he currently uses just aren’t able to support the heights he’s going up to, so wooden blocks are required.

So for this project, I decided to use some Douglas Fir, that although technically, a softwoood, is actually pretty hard and makes for very solid custom wood blocks for him to play with.

To make his life easy, I decided to make his blocks perfectly flat, parallel and square so stacking them means he doesn’t have to deal with custom wood blocks that lean or are out of wack.

That being said, as with just about any wooden blocks that aren’t laminated, even if finished, there will be some slight warping over time as the wood will still expand and contract based on environmental conditions as temperature and humidity changes, even if sealed.

This piece of solid Douglas Fir has cracked a bit over time but has stayed at a constant temperature and humidity level at CNCROi.com, in the shop, so the major movements present in the wood have gone through their motions.

Simon’s been pretty lucky, to him, things with his name and picture that I make for him are a given so I hope in the future, he visits this blog and sees how all the things I made for him were made and it makes him realize how special they really are.

Nothing matches the flatness and parallel’ing of what can be produced by our Thermwood CNC router, it’s so nice to work from boards, laminated or otherwise, that are totally dead flat and square in every way at CNCROi.com.

You can see the long crack in the middle of this piece of solid Douglas Fir, and it worked out fine for my purposes, because I had to cut this in half anyways and shave them somewhat to the same dimensions so that long crack is gone anyways.

The only dimension that really matters as far as these custom wood blocks is concerned, is that they are 3″, 6″, 9″ and 12″ high, the rest I made at different widths and lengths so he can have a bit of give and take as he builds his things.

This custom wood blocks project for Simon was actually quite fun, it’s a relatively simple project but knowing he’ll play with them for years to come makes it very valorizing.

Although this custom wood blocks project wasn’t laminated, the process of making them was almost identical, I just didn’t need to glue the smaller sticks together to make bigger blocks – that’s why I went with a thicker piece of wood to begin with at CNCROi.com.

I knew cutting this piece of Douglas Fir in half would leave quite a bit of play for me to flatten and square it up, as a result, the vast majority of the massive cracks in this wood were easily turned into wood chips.

As this is a piece of Douglas Fir straight from the mill, every side needs to be cleaned-up, that’s why you see the roughness on the sides, but under that, it’s beautiful wood that isn’t stained from wood production equipment.

I really enjoy working with real wood, especially before it has been cleaned-up, because it goes from something rough looking to something absolutely beautiful with unique color and grain patterns.

Unlike man-made materials, these custom wood blocks are each unique, like fingerprints or snowflakes, no two blocks are the same.

If you are wondering what laser engraving looks like on wood, the above video shows you the possibilities.

The reason why I cut this piece of Douglas Fir in half FIRST and then started routing them flat was because of the cracks, but secondarily, I wanted all the custom wood blocks to at least have one “side” that all had the same height if layed flat, the deviations were only on the depth.

Flattening these two larger blocks, from which the smaller ones at a consistent height would be fabricated, removed all marks from the tablesaw.

Unlike a planner, which I also have at CNCROi.com, there is no concern for snipe or other issues that happen when manually pushing wood through it, the CNC does a far more consistent job of this than any power tool could.

I kinda felt bad cutting-up the two big sticks I now have of Douglas Fir, they were so nice… but sacrifices must be made for Simon’s play time.

I’m overdue to make Simon a fresh set of dominos, these ones here have been used for a variety of projects at CNCROi.com and are no longer good for their intended purpose.

After cutting these to size, every sharp edge was sanded with a roughly 45 degree chamfer, it might not look like it, but these blocks are SHARP and can easily cut through the skin as this stage of production at CNCROi.com.

Now that the blocks are all cut to size, 3″, 6″, 9″ and 12″, it’s time to coat them with some protection to increase the longivity of these.

There are probably as many finishes out there as there are wood species, but tung oil is natural, works fantastic on just about anything and food safe – so Simon could eat these blocks and he’d only have constipation.

Now that these custom wood blocks are dry, they are perfect for Simon to start playing with!

Need custom wood blocks? Contact CNCROi.com right now!