Wood Growth Ruler: CNC Laser MDF / CNC Router Black Walnut

Although CNCROi.com can make a custom growth ruler out of literally any material, today we’ll make one using just some slabs of Black Walnut and our CNC laser for a customer, in this case, they will finish and paint to their own preference but we’ll do the easy work, making everything they need for their future mastery.

If you aren’t familiar with a growth ruler, I’ve seen tons of them at craft shows, generally made out of cheap plywood with hand drawn numbers, yes, CNCROi.com can make those too, but I believe if we are going to make something, we might as well kick it up a few knotches and use the good stuff, real wooden slabs and although MDF is anything but high-end material, after a few coats of paint, it will look amazing!

If you are wanting to learn more about the power of using flat slabs of wood, here’s a great video showing you how we do it across a variety of species and thicknesses.

Since acquiring our ShopBot PRS Alpha, we’ve pushed through a lot of wood, they haven’t all been flattening jobs, sometimes custom cabinetry, other times construction forms and templates for various applications.

For this growth ruler, there are two “types” of wood, one a man made composite known as MDF, it’s has it’s place, is dead-flat and laser cuts and engraves wonderfully.

MDF is an incredibly cost effective solution especially if you plan on using paint, it LOVES paint!

Additionally, MDF is available in a wide variety of thicknesses, from 1/8″ or 3 mm to as many inches as you want us to glue together at CNCROi.com for your custom application.

For making custom growth rulers, we made two for this specific job at CNCROi.com, the MDF was used because it paints very well and can provide a very high contrast to the far darker and richer look of the finished Black Walnut.

Here’s another example of MDF that’s been painted, again, this material really transforms magically with just a little spray paint you can get just about anywhere.

For this job, we wanted everything to be sharp, inner corners sharp, not rounded, as the CNC router would do, and in this case, the free contrast created by the laser cutting process wasn’t needed but making a placeholder for the customer to get their alignment perfect was, something now possible using a CNC router.

Another major advantage to making all the numbers and wording for the growth ruler using MDF with a laser is the incredible nesting capable, we’d easily use twice the amount of material to cut these out with our CNC router over our laser.

Where CNCROi.com‘s CNC laser excels in speed and sharpness, it does has some limitations, there is no perfect machine or process.

For instance, if we wanted to make these letters and numbers dimensional, it would be incredibly cost prohibitive to use our CNC laser, and our CNC router would make it at a higher level of precision in a fraction of the time.

But for this job, a flat surface for the Black Walnut and for the numbers is a huge advantage, nothing will get in the way of the kid lining-up for this growth ruler or snagged upon, so the mix of machines we used at CNCROi.com made sense.

There is certainly some synergy of having multiple CNC platforms in our shop, it allows us to use the best tool for the given application regardless of what it was, for instance, if you wanted these numbers and letters cut out of metal, we could have done that too at CNCROi.com.

https://vimeo.com/manage/263684906/

Offering limitless opportunities for our customers is what we are all about!

As the numbers and letters finish-up using MDF, keep in mind that as much as this material likes paint, it also loves in glue, it glues fantastic and is extremely hard to remove after it as set.

This will look amazing after our customer has finished painting these, they look like glorified cardboard right now but the person getting the end-product in painted MDF and polished Black Walnut will think they received something worth a million bucks!

The next step towards making these growth rulers is flattening the Black Walnut slabs, CNCROi.com has an extensive inventory of live edge species at different sizes and thicknesses, but before that process can begin, we got to make sure the table on our CNC router is flat!

This is a pretty easy process, it’s the same actually as we’ll later use when flattening the Black Walnut slabs that make-up the growth ruler, it’s just on the MDF sacrificial surface instead of the slab, but the same bit and speed is used.

This shows you what CNCROi.com does after this MDF surface is all flattened out, we just replace it with a new sheet!

It’s pretty neat each time I flatten this table, it’s a great way to get rid of the old and start fresh, I wished a similar method existed for my other CNC machines, it’s just fun to watch getting a brand new surface created right before my eyes.

If you are wondering about how often we flatten this table, it really depends on the job, sometimes big jobs require this done over and over again throughout production at CNCROi.com.

Other times, if we never actually bite too much into the surface, we can easily go months without refreshing the surface of our CNC router.

Having a flat surface means that the Black Walnut will lay as flat as possible while we go ahead at CNCROi.com and flatten them too, having a gantry parallel to the surface is an important step not to be skipped for ultimate quality.

CNCROi.com has done lots of custom live edge work, including custom Cherry house number signage that you really can’t miss!

This tool has proven invaluable for CNCROi.com as we keep growing in equipment and capabilities.

Another wonderful use of our CNC router’s capabilities is actually making custom house number signs, technically, the exact same process could be used to make a custom growth ruler as well.

Wood is an incredibly flexible material, able to suit a whole host of applications from a wide variety of industries.

CNCROi.com has also made custom ash trays, of all things, using our CNC router that are both functional and a piece of art of their own, again, the same process of carving can be easily used for the growth ruler as well, it never really ends.

This flexibility is what makes running CNCROi.com fun, there is always something new to try and make for our customers.

What I really enjoy about flattening wood is seeing the warping pattern, just look at the Black Walnut slabs in these photos, what you see as fresh wood are the high points, this is mirrored on the underside but for this growth ruler job, we only really needed to flatten only one side.

Of course, the deeper CNCROi.com goes into the wood, the less the warping becomes apparent, when it’s just about all gone, that’s when the slab is flat and based on the customer’s application, we either end it there or flip it around to do the same on the other side.

Having many different machines means endless creative options for our customers across North America and the Caribbean.

As you saw, the laser cut MDF came out fantastic and these live edge slabs of Black Walnut will come out equally as amazing for our customer to finish using their own skill and artistry.

Need something made and shipped right to your door? Contact CNCROi.com right now!