Pine Board Branding

Pine board branding can be done at CNCROi.com using a variety of methods, today we’ll explore what our CNC laser can do.

The advantage of the laser for pine board branding is that the contrast is “free”, meaning we don’t need to add paint or dyes to the wood after production.

Additionally, the burning we produce using our laser is permanent, the charcoal won’t fade, crack or peel over time, unlike any other method of pine board branding.

After a few years, the board can also be resanded and refinished if you feel it’s in need or a fresh coat of stain or finishing for indoor or outdoor use, the engraving is into the wood, so you won’t be removing that during the sanding process either.

Beautiful photographs can also be made into laser engraved Pine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGJGFMFwDmU/

To achieve a dark charcoal on the pine board branding, CNCROi.com does multiple passes over the board, the first pass is to break the toughened surface and achieve a little engraving.

The second pass is geared towards achieving depth, and the third is to darken the wood as much as possible to create a rich charcoal color in the wood.

Through the years, we’ve made a ton of custom signage for all uses.

The lines you see in these pictures are actually the denser wood grain, unlike CNC routers, the laser depth is affected by the density of the material, higher density, not as deep an engraving as lower density.

Tighter focus creates more lines and sharper ones, going out of focus spread the heat around and thus burning, as a result the grain lines are smoothed-out over a larger surface area.

The laser engraving process is always performed first on this pine board branding before cutting to make sure nothing moves on us during production, keeping accuracy tight until the very end, very important when multiple passes are required.

The bright light you see in the photos and the video isn’t the laser, that’s completely transparent, it’s the results of the laser vaporizing the pine board branding when the laser turns on to achieve an engraved area.

A lot of custom products can be made using Pine, from custom poker chips to signage and even furniture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eApJIdQGpS0/

When it comes to laser engraving resolution, CNCROi.com can go up to a thousand DPI though the wood cannot support this level of resolution as the density isn’t high enough for you to see the difference if we engraved at this resolution, so we engrave at a lower resolution which saves the customer money and us time.

You’ll see the third and final darkening pass o this pine board branding has the most effect in flattening the raised wood grain and making the contrast really pop on this sign, if we did this in the first pass, the results wouldn’t be as sharp as there would be too many competing processes happening at the same time, leaving a muddled result.

The customer will be sanding and finishing this plaque themselves, hence leaving the smoke stains on the surface, masking isn’t required as it would be more of a hassle to remove it after production than just sanding the surface using an orbital.

How deep and what effects can be produced with a laser? Here are the extreme results possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYdp_2xmXng/

When CNCROi.com is doing the charcoal pass, you can really see a lot of smoke being generated, this is because the engraving area is over a wider space due to the laser being out of focus on purpose.

You do notice as well that the grain is still very much present, the goal isn’t to remove the beautiful grain pattern, just to darken and flatten it compared to the other areas of the laser engraved pine board branding.

After all the laser engraving is complete, it’s time to let the laser go-ahead and cut this entire small sign out of the 3/4″ Pine.

Of course, we aren’t limited to only laser engraving and cutting Pine, we can carve it too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4PnfHZWRqY/

I’ve found through the years that multiple passes is again the best way forward using different depths though with thinner stock, doing the cutting in one pass is more than possible and preferable.

Now that this pine board branding is just about done, you can see the results look spectacular, again, customer is sanding and finishing, so the smoke is left on the surface on purpose.

The finished results can be easily hung indoor as well as out (after finishing) and it’s a unique piece that will last a very long time.

Need a custom sign? Any size, shape or material… contact CNCROi.com right now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdL1cdRDQo4/