Pine Pencil Holder: Custom Woodworking
Making a custom pine pencil holder for my parent’s birthday at CNCROi.com was a fun project as I ended-up totally changing the way I designed and made it from my initial ideas to finished product that I gave to them.
From hardwoods like Oak and Maple to softwoods like Pine, CNCROi.com can work with them all to make your own custom product that comes to life within your imagination.
Pine is really a wonderful material to work with, it sands very easily and produces amazing contrast when CNC laser engraved by CNCROi.com.
For the first design of the custom Pine pencil holder, I was planning on making the entire project using just woodworking tools with the laser at the end using the simplest method possible.
When it comes to woodworking at CNCROi.com, I really enjoy it as I have all the tooling to make just about anything in the shop using a variety of materials but sometimes personal projects take-on a life of their own.
Gluing boards together, using a fostner bit to drill out the holes then laser engraving seemed like a very easy plan to start, very little can go wrong and it would produce what I wanted for their present… I was wrong.
If you are looking for an extreme example of Pine engraving, here’s a really cool gun I made at CNCROi.com for my nephew to hold his keys.
Everything went great until it was time to drill 4″ deep holes into the custom Pine pencil holder, then I realized the error of my ways and as I try to do things as efficient as possible in my shop, I immediately began trying to think of a better way to make this project come to life.
Making custom woodworking projects at CNCROi.com always presents unique opportunities, whether it’s made using our manual or CNC equipment in the shop.
Fostner bits are great, Pine is great… but when you have to do very deep into wood, they start acting like a grinding wheel more than a hole driller and as a result, lots of fine dust and a very rough finish is produced.
Of course, after extensive sanding of the custom Pine pencil holder, it looked half-decent but this just wasn’t the look I was after nor the finish that I wanted to give to my parents for their birthday.
Although I showcase a lot of “flat” work at CNCROi.com, we also do a lot of dimensional type work though much of it is covered under NDA so I can’t share photos or videos of it with others.
So the simplest solution to this custom Pine pencil holder problem was to start all over again and this time, use the power of CNC that would allow me, if needed, to easily mass-produce these.
It’s pretty amazing how big and small we can work from design and production wise at CNCROi.com, whether you want something you can ride or something that fits in your pocket, we can make it for you!
Yes, I could have made this using the CNC router for a better finish and a few less involved steps when making and assembling the custom Pine pencil holder but I still wanted to play around with my bandsaw so I went the CNC laser engraved template then cutting with the bandsaw way instead.
There are so many opportunities at CNCROi.com for our customers when it comes to custom fabricating woodworking projects, we can mix metals, plastics, even stones and other exotic materials to form a finished piece or pieces.
Pre-cutting the “holes” into the custom Pine pencil holder panels means that no drilling would be required, I’m also using a lot less glue and the results if I had to make a bunch of these would be far more consistent and cost effective on a per unit basis.
You can see there is still some room for improvement when it comes to making this Version 2.0 custom Pine pencil holder, I engraved my template lines a bit too deep and you can see about 1/8″ lines still in the glue-up of this custom Pine pencil holder.
CNCROi.com has it’s beginnings in custom model making, so whether you want something made flat or 3D, we’ve got you covered!
I knew that sanding it would solve a lot of issues and it did, I was very happy with the end results before laser engraving this custom Pine pencil holder.
I used CNCROi.com’s wide-format industrial CNC Trotec laser from Austria to engrave into the custom Pine pencil holder my birthday message to my parents.
When it comes to “simple” projects, CNCROi.com can also just make the components and this allows you the opportunity to finish it up at your end, I fully appreciate the need to make things “your own” so we are here to help as far as you need us to.
I didn’t bother masking this as I knew I’d have to sand all the surfaces again anyways, you can see some deep scratches in the surface that were made during the woodworking phase of this custom Pine pencil holder.
After sanding though, this custom Pine pencil holder looked great and I was very proud to make something for my parents to enjoy for years to come.
The Pine looked great and provides a wonderful contrast to the laser engraving a I performed on this custom Pine pencil holder.
The possibilities that CNCROi.com offers you regarding custom product creation and finishing are endless, from custom slot lamps to full scale models of whatever you want, we’ve got the experience, equipment and software to pull it off!
There is room for improvement but that’s why prototyping is important before doing a production run, it allows you to sort out any hick-ups before going into mass production and quite a few lessons were hard learned on this simple project as well.
Need some custom woodworking for any occasion?
Contact me at CNCROi.com.
And yes, we can also make glow in the dark cats too!