Stainless Steel Bow Ties (for Woodworking)

Stainless steel bow ties are a first for me, generally we make these out of some exotic species of wood, but for this customer, they needed something far stronger!

Of course, we also made a jig so they can cut our using a manual router, the shape that they need for their stainless steel bow ties.

What’s the most cost-effective method to cut stainless steel? CNC Plasma!

I’ve really come to enjoy plasma cutting, it’s such a wonderfully unique tool in the CNCROi.com arsenal, it compliments wonderfully both our CNC routers and our lasers in just so many ways to create a true synergy that’s always hitting me with surprises.

Router jigs of all types can be made at CNCROi.com for customers all over the place.

Plasma cutting is fast and I’ve used it to make a variety of custom metal jobs, most of which I can’t share on CNCROi.com due to NDA but those that I can, tend to be smaller but just as enjoyable – from big production jobs to small ones, we cut them all!

When it comes to plasma cutting, as long as an arc can be produced, the plasma will cut it – stainless steel, mild steel, aluminium, titanium and a number of more exotic metals all cut fantastically – and these stainless steel bow ties are no different.

BBQ grills are fun to make, lots of creative options available using this material.

Don’t let appearances fool you, unlike every other machine in the shop, you can fully feel the power of this machine in full display, sparks, flames… just awesomeness at how easily it cuts through metal compared to any other method available out there.

It’s hard to throw away material, especially sheets of stainless steel, as you can see, there have been several projects cut out of this and this sheet has finally earned the right to retire after this job to a metal recycler.

These stainless steel bow ties were fun to cut, trying to get the nesting just right to get the optimal use of this final sheet of 12 ga (3 mm or 1/8″) 304 stainless steel.

We’ve made lots of interesting wall art and pieces for customers across North America.

For this job, it happens that all the stainless steel bow ties are the same in spec (dimension, thickness etc.) but they could have been all different sizes just as easily, CNCROi.com doesn’t mind, nor does our equipment.

If you wanted 1″ thick stainless steel bow ties, not a problem for us, we’ll cut them and ship them right to your door!

On some of these cuts, I was right on the edge of losing the arc, some very tight nesting was achieved on this but everything worked-out in the end.

Being able to mix and match materials always makes for a fun time at CNCROi.com.

You can see the sparks on top and the flame underneath, I’m self-taught on the plasma and at first, this machine did scare me a bit but I quickly got use to it… if any other machine at CNCROi.com were to act in this way, it would be a very bad thing!

This is one of the first projects I also did using my new camera after my last one died, the photographs are looking a lot better, I use to have to throw-out so many photos it’s crazy due to things being out of focus etc.

Cutting custom stainless steel bow ties was a great way to use-up the remaining steel scrap sheets I had, it does slow down production though as this can’t be all cut in one shot but measurements need to be made and borders accounted for.

Animal shapes of all sizes can be cut out of metal by CNCROi.com, you pick the animal, we’ll cut it and ship it right to your door!

After cutting out all the stainless steel bow ties, it was time to make the jig using the same material, this allows the customer to cut unlimited bow ties from their live edge pieces and just insert the bow ties after doing the manual routing and chisel work.

Of course, I had a few other jobs going on at the same time as this one, as a result, I was optimizing across several jobs in order to get the most out of these sheets of stainless steel.

CNCROi.com has made jigs of all types and kinds for manual routers, not everybody can afford or have enough production requirements to justify a CNC router, and for that, these steel ones do an amazing job.

CNCROi.com also produces a variety of custom stencils using metals of all types.

Of course, with the jig, there is a sacrificial stainless steel bow tie, this is way out of spec and you can see the entry/exit points that exist when plasma cutting metal of all types.

The stainless steel bow ties are not yet ready for prime time though, they need a bit of sanding and polishing before being ready for a job.

Once cleaned-up, you can see how amazing these stainless steel bow ties will look encased into live edge tables, chairs and anything else you can imagine.

Need custom stainless steel bow ties? Contact CNCROi.com right now!