Small Custom Fire Rescue Marshal Plaque: Poplar (Part 2 of 3)

This is the second part of the small custom fire rescue marshal plaque project I ended-up doing, at first it was Poplar but we were looking for alternatives and for the smaller plaques, ended-up going with Acacia over Pine, for reasons you’ll see in the video below.

There is no perfect material out there for any given project, it’s the best one that suits the aesthetic required and in this case, we originally made a larger plaque using Poplar but when we scaled it down, it just didn’t work well.

If you want to see the original one we made using Poplar, at the larger size, it’s the video below.

And now, we find-out why we went with Acacia for the smaller plaques.

CNCROi.com has done a lot of work using Pine, it’s a fantastic material relative to durability, weight and strength but for this specific project, the aesthetic just didn’t match what the client was going for.

We made a fantastic large fire rescue marshal plaque and the smaller Poplar version just didn’t work well and the Pine was sort of OK but just didn’t go well with it for various reasons.

The main issue with the Pine, as it was with the smaller Poplar version, was that the logo had a lot of fine details in it and they just didn’t come over well as soon as we had some depth into the woods, we’d lose too much details and going light was my first instinct to solve that issue for the mall custom fire rescue marshal plaque.

Pine works great if you get some depth into it, if you don’t have the depth, you lose a lot of shadow and as a result, contrast, and it was evidently noticeable for the mall custom fire rescue marshal plaque at CNCROi.com.

For this project, the client wanted wood to be used over steel, which is totally an option for our clients.

Again, the small custom fire rescue marshal plaque was to stand-up against the larger Poplar version and it just ended-up looking like a very cheap compromise to be honest, other options were other hardwoods such as Maple etc… but again, they just didn’t have the presence.

The advantage with Pine over other woods is that the laser was able to engrave then cut out the wood in one process, I didn’t have to switch from the CNC router to the CNC laser, this saves time and money but that savings came at a cost that even I didn’t really think was worth it for this specific small custom fire rescue marshal plaque.

After the sanding process, holding it just didn’t have much weight either, again, these are to be given to individuals and you want something with some weight and WOW factor, Pine for this small custom fire rescue marshal plaque, just didn’t fit the bill.

We’ve been known to mix and match materials through the years, it all depends on the look you are going after.

I was also not happy with the edge quality, I could have routered this small custom fire rescue marshal plaque too but then you’d lose a lot of contrast on the edges that made it pop a lot more.

So, after looking at many alternatives, I decided to try some Acacia I had laying around in the shop to see if the logo would work better… it was already finished so I decided to shave it off, which needed to be done anyways as it was too thick, to transform it into the small custom fire rescue marshal plaque.

The piece of Acacia I had in the shop had several layers of tung oil on it, so shaving it off from both sides showed a very well protected, almost prestine laminated Acacia board which looked far closer to the aesthetic of the original larger Poplar plaque.

There is nothing wrong with Pine, it’s a great wood for a wide variety of projects, for instance, the above photo wouldn’t work well with Acacia but works great with Pine!

More importantly, the Acacia had the weight and presence that the Pine was severely lacking, so although this would be a two-step process machining it then laser engraving, it was well worth the additional investment of time doing so at CNCROi.com for the small custom fire rescue marshal plaque.

The CNC router does quick and high quality work of the small custom fire rescue marshal plaque blank, there were a few design modifications required due to the smaller scale, you can see most of them more evidently when comparing the outline of the Pine to the Acacia version.

I really love my CNC routers, I have a very larger format 5 ft x 10 ft Thermwood and a far smaller ShopBot Desktop that does finer detail type work at CNCROi.com.

I’ve used Acacia for lots of family portraits at CNCROi.com, including my own that stay on the wall of my own living room.

The advantage of being able to make my own blanks at CNCROi.com is that I can basically make things on-demand in any volume and scale I want for projects, big and smal.

You can se that the Acacia cuts wonderfully on my CNC router, the thickness is a little more than 3/4″, too thick to laser cut properly but no problem for the router, the wood also had a nice edge quality to it from the router so you have the perfect look and feel from the finished product.

After CNC routering the small custom fire rescue marshal plaque, it was time to throw it in the laser and beging the engraving process, for the actual project, these would have different information on them, this was just a proof of concept.

Engraving Acacia, which I prefer to call Acadia, seems to work great for a wide vareity of applications.

The finished product after laser engraving was perfect, the logo was clearly legible and wasn’t too fragile, the details were sharp and most importantly, the contrast was dead-on… which would be further accentuated from the application of Tung Oil.

Unlike the small custom fire rescue marshal plaque made out of Poplar, the Acacia version didn’t break apart during the sanding process yet showed a strong grain which we were after.

Tung Oil is really a wonderful finish, it’s foolproof, provides exceptional protection of the wood and most importantly, can be applied in successive layers for a darker look.

I’ve used laminated Acacia for years for project, it has, like every other material, it’s plus and minus.

Now this was a small custom fire rescue marshal plaque that was worthy of the engravings put onto it, so this was shipped to the customer for review and they were very pleased with it.

Here are the plaques for comparison, a deep Pine engraving, a light one and the winner by a long shot, the Acacia finished with Tung Oil.

Need a custom plaque? Contact CNCROi.com right now!