How to Make Custom Laser Cut Frames

Making laser cut frames and other architectural or esthetic pieces are quite easy for CNCROi.com. For instance, these 5 inch square picture frames can easily be scaled-up to make custom doorways and room dividers or down for elements within a miniature model.

Today we’ll CNC laser cut the same frame design across three different materials, the first two are the same thickness, 1/8 inch thick or 3 mm MDF (glorified cardboard) and acrylic with the third being quarter-inch or 6 mm MDF.

The first of the laser cut frames we’ll do is the thin 3 mm or 1/8th inch one. This is a popular material because it’s relatively inexpensive, paints extremely easily and is consistent while being widely available on short notice. Some of CNCROi.com‘s biggest high volume projects have been with this material!

With the above video, you now know what the results of engraving and more precisely, cutting far thicker MDF can achieve. I’m not a huge fan of MDF, I prefer using real wood but when things are on a budget for a customer, it’s the go-to material for many applications.

MDF is very smoky though, which is fine as we have plenty of clearance on our industrial Austrian wide-format laser, compressed air going down onto the material (pushing the smoke under instead of over the work) and extraction both top and bottom so this combustible gas doesn’t stay in the machine very long.

What is also pretty neat is that our CNC laser does exactly the same cutting pattern across all three of these laser cut frames, step by step, although the speed may be slightly different (due to material variances), you can follow it repeatedly with absolute precision.

As with all our laser work, to maintain absolute accuracy, these laser cut frames being no different, we start with the inner geometry then work our way outwards.

This allows us to make projects over and over again without having it move on us before the whole laser cutting process for one unit is finished.

These are all scrap boards left over from other projects, with MDF we generally ask the customer what they want to use the work for, if it’s to be painted, we don’t bother masking it.

For these laser cut frames, it’s just a demonstration so there is no point in covering them up. MDF can be sanded but at this thin a board, best to just mask or paint.

If you are wondering what are some other design possibilities with this wood, here’s a video showing you another application.

As you can see, MDF can actually be very nice for the proper application, there is no point painting something that’s engraved like the above MDF cake topper, hence why it was masked instead. Now back to our CNC laser cut frames!

The very first CNC laser cut frame is now complete, it’s time to move right away onto the acrylic, same thickness, very different material. The advantage with acrylic is that it can be had in a bunch of different colors and transparencies. In this case, it’s a smoky grey which we use quite a bit in the shop as well.

It’s very hard to photograph something that’s semi-transparent so the pictures didn’t come out very well but it is neat to see the flame from our laser shooting down under the material instead of just being a black hole where you see nothing emerge.

When we do huge sheets of acrylic like this, the light show can be pretty spectacular!

The blue flame you see on the image below is just one of the many colors we get to produce with our Austrian industrial laser, CNC laser cut frames or any design we do, we get to see this though it’s via these demonstrations that you get to see them first hand.

I know this acrylic looks kinda boring, CNC laser cut frames out of acrylic on an industrial table isn’t the most exciting way to display this material but here’s an idea of what is if you use your imagination.

That’s not all, we also make custom LED lighting using clear acrylic as well, watch this.

As I keep telling my customers, there is an incredible amount of project diversity in our shop and the skies the limit when it comes to what we can do for them.

These are custom CNC laser cut frames but just scaling them up gives them a totally different presence, then throw-in some paint and you have custom frames that would be not that much out-of-place in a high-end house or museum… and that’s just a SIMPLE FRAME!

Our industrial laser also flame polishes the acrylic during the cutting process, so there is no secondary processing required on the edge, unlike projects that we make using our industrial CNC router (yes, we have one of those too!)

This thin acrylic is now cut, that makes two CNC laser cut frames and we have one left to go, the thicker MDF version then we’ll review them all together.

Another application where acrylic is pretty good is mold production, here’s an example of a pretty thick mold using quarter-inch (6 mm) black acrylic. There is some slight warping during production but it’s easily resolved.

Although nowhere near as extensive, we’ve also done HUGE production runs, here’s an example of samples I made a while back for CNCROi.com just to show you what it looks like when hundreds of units are being produced in one shot.

These CNC laser cut frames could have been just as easily mass-produced.

Now that you are an expert across acrylic and MDF in all it’s versions when it comes to design, let’s cut a SIMPLE frame out of it!

CNC laser cut frames out of 6 mm or quarter-inch material or half-inch or whatever, it really makes no difference, we have plenty of CO2 laser power to go around, including a fiber laser tube that doesn’t do anything on MDF (it’s used for metal annealing and plastic color changing).

Laser cut frames out of thicker material does produce more smoke, more fire and more combustible material and takes longer to cut, that’s because there is more material that needs to be cut THROUGH and hence, more of everything else that comes out.

This is true regardless of material, MDF is especially dense, so it really produces a lot of smoke, quarter-inch or 6 mm MDF produces as much fire and gas as something a lot thicker but less dens like whitewood.

There you go, yet another application that’s easily adaptable to laser cut frames, we could have cut these frames out of that whitewood just as easily. Your material options are as endless as your budget and unit count with CNCROi.com.

CNCROi.com offers your company and projects incredible diversity in materials, sizes and volumes. On-demand manufacturing allows us to easily produce what you need, when you need it, how you need it.

Whether it’s custom CNC laser cut frames or Egyptian banks, makes no difference to us!

Also, if you are wondering what kind of larger scale projects that’s possible using MDF, here’s a project using MDF to make furniture. In this case, it’s a piece of furniture that was needed in the shop to help us sand a lot of projects we have using wood.

CNC laser cut frames out of MDF or any other material is pretty straight forward for our laser, the design process is also rather simple, it’s optimizing both process for production that helps move things forward efficiently.

Due to the brightness of the laser beam after it touches the material, photography of these CNC laser cut frames is no different. The image below, you tend to forget there is actually a laser beam going across the photo, you just don’t see it and it hit mirrors to focus it downwards.

As the cutting of this quarter-inch or 6 mm MDF is finishing-up, it follows the perimeter, you can see the smoke build-up along the edges.

All three laser cut frames are now done, you can see how much more smoke on the thicker MDF on the far right compared to the thinner on the left. The acrylic is in the center.

Taking out the CNC laser cut frames out of their material confines showcases just how easily the exact same design was cut out of these three different ones.

This repeatability is very important because it means we can produce consistent production results for our customers and if you wanted them all different or same, makes no difference.

I took these laser cut frames from our Trotec Laser bed onto our concrete floor, just to help you more clearly see what they look like.

And in my hand, you can see these laser cut frames at yet another angle.

Now a closer look at the quality, now you know why you want to paint the MDF, yes, it can be sanded but paint is by far the best way for MDF that doesn’t have any engraving.

CNCROi.com works to your spec, across any material and design you want, contact us today!