Suggestions on how to approach this project....

paddylonglegs

Hi folks,

Iv been developing a project for the last while and am deciding on what way to approach the wood end of things. It's a type of wall decor piece

To explain, my designs are of various shapes, relatively intricate, which are cnc routed, approx 150mm x 200mm. To date, I have been getting these routed from 15mm mdf and have been hand painting them. I get approx 40 pieces done at a time as this fills a half sheet.

However now I would like to produce the same designs from wood - ideally a dark wood I.e walnut, mahogany or other dark woods. It's really important that I have a nice finish on the edge and that this looks like a solid piece of wood.

So my issues are: if i was to get veneered mdf routed, then I obviously have the mdf edges exposed, the shapes themselves are intricate so an edging veneer Would be just too difficult to work with.

Birch ply is a lovely product, but the style of my designs just don't lend itself that well to the simplistic style of birch ply.

I could get 12mm birch ply and 3mm hardwood veneered ply routed, glue them together and stain the edges, but I don't think this would really cut the mustard.

My ideal situation would be to get 15mm solid hardwood sheets cnc routed. Iv searched for these but they seem hard to get and I imagine they cost an absolute packet? Can someone tell me if this is the case? In my limited experience with wood, the only hard wood lengths Iv seen would be window boards - it might be possible to cnc route these but I'm not sure

Sorry for the big long tale, but maybe I could get another opinion on this and any suggestions on my best approach.

Much appreciated.

tabby aspreme

Get some planks of the required hardwood planed to 15mm ✖ 150mm or 15mm ✖ 200mm and machine from them

recipio

You can buy rough 1.25 inch timber and plane and thichness it down to 35 mm. It would then have to be resawn into two halves to avoid a criminal waste of wood and finish thicknessed to 15 mm. Obviously you will need a good workshop with a large bandsaw to do this.
At 15 mm thick however it is unlikely the wood will stay flat -expect a lot of warping as the wood dries out a bit. This is why sheet goods were invented in the first place !
You can buy a product called 'pineboard' in 15 mm which is strips of knot free pine glued together - worth a look ?
Alternatively if you could work with 22 -23 mm wood planed from 25 mm stock you would have a better chance of finding stable stock.

jack of all

Woodworkers.ie have a range of laminated hardwood worktops in a choice of woods, but minimum thickness is 20mm.

paddylonglegs

recipio wrote: »

You can buy rough 1.25 inch timber and plane and thichness it down to 35 mm. It would then have to be resawn into two halves to avoid a criminal waste of wood and finish thicknessed to 15 mm. Obviously you will need a good workshop with a large bandsaw to do this.
At 15 mm thick however it is unlikely the wood will stay flat -expect a lot of warping as the wood dries out a bit. This is why sheet goods were invented in the first place !
You can buy a product called 'pineboard' in 15 mm which is strips of knot free pine glued together - worth a look ?
Alternatively if you could work with 22 -23 mm wood planed from 25 mm stock you would have a better chance of finding stable stock.

Thanks for all the replies folks. I think the pineboard is the next route to take. It's the closest thing I'll get to solid wood sheet and get that wood finished edge. I'll do my research on a stained oil or varnish to darken it for that look I'm going for and see how that turns out.

It looks like woodworkers are the best price for sheets of pineboard, would this be right?

Cheers

Who2

recipio wrote: »

You can buy rough 1.25 inch timber and plane and thichness it down to 35 mm. It would then have to be resawn into two halves to avoid a criminal waste of wood and finish thicknessed to 15 mm. Obviously you will need a good workshop with a large bandsaw to do this.
At 15 mm thick however it is unlikely the wood will stay flat -expect a lot of warping as the wood dries out a bit. This is why sheet goods were invented in the first place !
You can buy a product called 'pineboard' in 15 mm which is strips of knot free pine glued together - worth a look ?
Alternatively if you could work with 22 -23 mm wood planed from 25 mm stock you would have a better chance of finding stable stock.

its too costly to buy 35mm and to look at resawing. its a lot cheaper run 25mm and shoot a heap of it up the extractor.

recipio

Who2 wrote: »

its too costly to buy 35mm and to look at resawing. its a lot cheaper run 25mm and shoot a heap of it up the extractor.

25 down to 15 mm ? I'd be guilt ridden

raspberrypi67

Interesting tale OK. I've often thought of building my own cnc type router for carving names etc... Anyway, you're right on your assessment of the veneers, would not look right.
The hard wood planks of hardwood are expensive. The widest I've ever seen, apart from 'slabs ', is about 1 foot wide. You would need a type of grain that is quite compact, maple lends itself well to carving and routing. Cherry I have found to be good. Iroko, teak replacement, is good but fairly pricy. Beech actually is quite good also and I'd put it up there with Maple.
Hope this helps a bit... Rich.

paddylonglegs wrote: »

Hi folks,

Iv been developing a project for the last while and am deciding on what way to approach the wood end of things. It's a type of wall decor piece

To explain, my designs are of various shapes, relatively intricate, which are cnc routed, approx 150mm x 200mm. To date, I have been getting these routed from 15mm mdf and have been hand painting them. I get approx 40 pieces done at a time as this fills a half sheet.

However now I would like to produce the same designs from wood - ideally a dark wood I.e walnut, mahogany or other dark woods. It's really important that I have a nice finish on the edge and that this looks like a solid piece of wood.

So my issues are: if i was to get veneered mdf routed, then I obviously have the mdf edges exposed, the shapes themselves are intricate so an edging veneer Would be just too difficult to work with.

Birch ply is a lovely product, but the style of my designs just don't lend itself that well to the simplistic style of birch ply.

I could get 12mm birch ply and 3mm hardwood veneered ply routed, glue them together and stain the edges, but I don't think this would really cut the mustard.

My ideal situation would be to get 15mm solid hardwood sheets cnc routed. Iv searched for these but they seem hard to get and I imagine they cost an absolute packet? Can someone tell me if this is the case? In my limited experience with wood, the only hard wood lengths Iv seen would be window boards - it might be possible to cnc route these but I'm not sure

Sorry for the big long tale, but maybe I could get another opinion on this and any suggestions on my best approach.

Much appreciated.

recipio

paddylonglegs wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies folks. I think the pineboard is the next route to take. It's the closest thing I'll get to solid wood sheet and get that wood finished edge. I'll do my research on a stained oil or varnish to darken it for that look I'm going for and see how that turns out.

It looks like woodworkers are the best price for sheets of pineboard, would this be right?

Cheers

Trying to turn pine into walnut is likely to end in tears.It would have to be done after the CNC routing and just adds another job to the process. You could just buy 3" x 12" turning blanks off #bay, rip them down to 15 mm and edge join them. ?