Custom Wood Signage: Engraving Photos vs Solid Art

There are a lot of decisions required with custom wood signage, from the species to the engraving style, today CNCROi.com will review just some of the options available to our customers.

Of course, options are endless with CNCROi.com so if you wanted them to be stainless steel or high density plastic, we can make custom signage to that spec as well.

The first custom wood signage we’ll make will be on 3/4″ laminated Pine, laser engraving a photo using a dot matrix system for ultimate clarity and details to come out of the finished product.

Regardless of the material under the laser head, the laser engraving process is essentially the same, just the speeds and sources are different to account for material density changes.

The bright light you see on this Pine during the laser engraving process of this specific custom wood signage is the instant vaporization and charcoal production.

Of course, if wood isn’t your flavor, CNCROi.com can also do incredible work on other unrelated materials including stainless steel!

Smoke also settles on the surface of the custom wood signage regardless of the wood species, as such, it will be sanded by CNCROi.com after the engraving process is finished.

The advantage of using Pine over the other wood species in this CNCROi.com blog post, Butternut, is cost and contrast, it gives a better contrast with a light color than the already relatively dark butternut, and being 3/4″ thick vs almost an inch and a half.

After the laser engraving process, there is quite a bit of smoke and dust built-up on the surface but it’s easily sanded off the custom wood signage, like it is off the Butternut.

Keep in mind that there are no inks or dyes involved with this custom wood signage, so sanding only removes the smoke, there is no leaking or pulling or pushing of color beyond where CNCROi.com‘s laser did the engraving and produced charcoal.

When we work with other materials, such as Corian, this is a necessity because the laser or router does not produce any contrast what-so-ever, another win for wood!

The other major advantage to laser engraving for contrast is that it’s completely natural, though I don’t suggest it, you can eat this sign without worries about ingesting anything toxic so yes, you could technically eat off this or use it as a cutting board without issue.

The next wood species we will work with is a solid piece of live edge Butternut, unlike Pine, this is a hardwood and it has a lot more heft to it by comparison.

As mentioned, the engraving process is the same, as such, it’s only the design itself that’s different, in this case, it’s a solid vector so no dot matrix is required to add details to the finished custom wood signage.

What I like about making custom wood signage at the shop is that it smells wonderful, it’s like enjoying a camp fire without having to worry about an actual fire as nothing is flammable during the laser engraving process.

Oddly enough, the shop smells just as great when we make chips for custom wood signage as with the laser, at the end of the day, dust is dust regardless of source.

Butternut is a wonderful hardwood to work with, while the Pine is great for indoor use and limited outdoor hanging, going with live edge solid wood is great indoors or out.

The charcoal produced with the Pine is the same as with the Butternut, the reason the contrast seems different is the lighter color of the Pine but also with the Butternut, the contrast seems more consistent because the wood itself is more consistent in color and density.

You can see the depth better in this laser engraved custom wood signage than the Pine because it’s a more solid engraving, notice the light reflection in the above photo and slightly less in the photo below, it’s about 1/16″ deep.

Not all custom wood signage has to be flat, we can also incorporate your message into great piece of furniture or pop-up displays.

The way lasers work, going faster, using the same power setting, produces less depth while going slower produces more depth per laser pass on wood and most other materials that CNCROi.com makes custom wood signage with.

The reason for going multiple passes is to add more depth, add more contrast (charcoal) and to add a bit more engraving details right into the engraving itself or making the valleys less deep verses the peaks in the wood grain.

The results are fantastic regardless of the wood species used, budgets, timelines and design files are what dictate the results more than anything else, wood is a warm material and as such, any choice you make will be a good one when it comes to custom wood signage.

I’ve lost count of how many custom wood signage and general engraving and cutting I’ve done at CNCROi.com on woods of all species and types, but this is really a material that never gets boring or old as each board is completely unique to the last with reactions from the process being just as different.

Wood is such a diverse material to work from, there is an incredible variety of options available unlike anything else we work with at the shop.

The laser engraving process is actually highly dependent on the base material under it, especially when it comes to wood, things like knots will require more power as will a heavy grain pattern than something more “bland” like Basswood that has nothing but consistency behind it.

The amount of smoke created during the laser engraving process is directly related to both what’s being engraved and the depth and density of the material it occurs in.

As the vent for this custom wood signage is at the head of the table, that’s why you see the smoke going up in more that direction than downwards, but regardless after cleaning it up, the results look spectacular regardless of the material used.

Although the Butternut has a deeper brown color, the looks can be deceiving as the engraving style is so different, it really depends on the application at the end of the day as to which material and process is used but generally, photographs come out better in a dot matrix style and solid art as a solid engraving.

Need some custom wood signage? Contact CNCROi.com right now!