Engraved Oak Family Portrait: Simon’s Grandparents
Simon visited his parents recently for the first time and I transformed one of those photos into an engraved Oak family portrait with them for posterity.
I’ve done a ton of custom family portraits on wood through the years at CNCROi.com, from experience, a great photo produces a great result, and that’s what I achieved with this that I’m sure he’ll treasure well into the future.
After cutting this piece of hardwod Oak to match the size of the engraving I was going to do with the laser, it was time to stick it into the laser to transform pixels to charcoal at CNCROi.com.
There was quite a bit of pre-processing of this photo in order to achieve the perfect contrast and details in this photo to produce the absolute best engraved Oak family portrait possible for Simon’s extended family but the photo itself was very well taken digitally to begin with in order to produce good results from the get-go.
Something I’ve started doing on these engraved Oak family portrait designs is adding the year somewhere on the photo, the immediate family knows when this was taken, maybe when Simon’s older he’ll sorte of figure it out as well but a few generations down the line, nobody will know as unlike color photography, there is no aging in the photo so for prosperity, add dates and details somewhere.
I love engraving wood at CNCROi.com, between the welding and rubber stamp production, the shop doesn’t always smell the best, and the nice smell of a camp fire is a welcome.
My house is also starting to fill-up with wood engraved family portraits, each wood has it’s unique features, hardwoods to softwoods.
Oak is a wonderful material for laser engraving portraits because it’s a hardwood, which means it has a high density, and as a result the charcoal and the surface of the wood itself is “hard” and thus, more durable than doing the same using Pine, though the cost is a lot more of the raw material and post-processing from sanding to finishing.
What I like about this photo is that it’s the first time Simon has tried to do a peace sign and he was trying to figure out the hand movement required to achieve it, he’s just under 4 years old in this photo with his cousin, so he’s still learning many things daily.
Something that you have to keep in mind is that contrast is achieved in two ways on something like this engraved Oak family portrait, the first is the obvious charcoal, which is a darker color than the non-burned wood, but the second is the depth created during the creation of this laser engraving which adds shadows when the light hits it at an angle.
Of course, if you wanted 3D carving of a photograph, CNCROi.com can do that too.
The nice thing about charcoal is that there isn’t any paint, dyes or other agents used to create it, as such, it doesn’t age over time, charcoal made today is the same charcoal a thousand years from now, it won’t fade, peel or crack over time.
The differences you see in the engraved Oak family portrait are caused by variations in the Oak density, being a natural material, you have growth rings, some areas with darker wood, others with lighter wood, others with more resins, others with whatever… all of these come together and affect how the laser engraves and the charcoal color and texture.
The engraved Oak family portrait looks worse and worse during the laser engraving process because there is smoke and dust build-up on the surface of the Oak, this is why I sand it after it has been lasered to remove this and show the clean Oak surface once again.
The bright light you see during production is the instant vaporization of the wood under the intense energy released by the laser beam as it hits the wood, the laser itself is invisible, so what you are seeing is the result of this interaction, not the interaction itself.
Family portraits can be customized to just about any size you can imagine to any spec you could ever come-up with.
You can see on the second pass of the laser across this engraved Oak family portrait that there is some depth created by the second pass (there is some on the first too!), and I can technically keep going over this engraving until I go all the way through the board but this is CNC pyrography I’m doing at CNCROi.com, not stencil production in this case, so that isn’t needed nor wanted.
You can see more smoke being created on the second pass on this engraved Oak family portrait, the reason for this is two-fold, the first, the charcoal from the previous pass is being vaporized, and at the same time, additional depth AND new charcoal is being created again.
That that the laser engraving is complete, you can see how much smoke and soot has built-up onto the surface of this engraved Oak family portrait, it tends to muddy everything.
If you want something dramatically more long lasting… like something that will pretty much last forever in just about any environment, here’s a picture of Simon etched into stailess steel.
After a quick sanding through the grits, you can see how wonderful this engraved Oak family portrait came out after the surface was cleaned, as some of the soot was also going into the engraved areas and muddying that area as well.
After a layer of tung oil is applied to the wood, the engraved Oak family portrait is finished, the tung oil is a natural preservative and keeps the wood relatively sealed from the environment but more importantly, also adds some additional contrast to the wood surface and the charcoal, similar as if I ran a garden hose over this to keep it wet.
The resolution of the photo came out fantastically, the photo to begin with was very good and thus the final results are spectacular, everything worked in my favor with this engraved Oak family portrait.
If you want a engraved Oak family portrait of you or your family… or eve your cat, contact CNCROi.com right now!