3d engrave material

What type of wood and thickness have you used for a 3d engrave? I want to do a nice, deep engrave on some type of solid wood.

1/8" and 1/4" basswood, maple, cherry and padauk hardwoods so far. You can engrave for depth on any of the hardwoods, obviously if it’s thinner, you can’t go as deep.

And the sizing of the design matters. Tiny details burn much deeper, so be prepared to adjust your settings and/or your design, or you might burn through thinner slices.

The lighter the wood, the better the contrast with the engraved results. The harder the wood, the sharper the details, but the char and staining tends to wipe off.

That’s about it so far…have fun experimenting. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I have some red oak and some basswood - what type of settings did you use for your woods?

Materials differ enough that testing is the best way to get what your after. Variable power is the main thing. Additional passes go deeper…

Don’t know for oak, for the basswood hardwood I just used the default 3D Engrave settings.

The best case is to use wood you have to tell you what are good numbers to use.
I use this…
evans%20tests
Your experience may vary and of course thickness counts. You can run these tests with the cuts at the speed noted the engraves at twice that speed and 340 LPI. Quarter inch material seems to cut through many at 140 and full. a test in what I think may be red oak engraved all the way through at 360 (180x2) full power 340 LPI but not at 400, but your red oak may differ.
Having a collection of these for the thickest cases of what you have is very useful as it is real data any time you want to reference it.

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1/4" basswood is probably my favorite. I know it’s not a solid wood, but thick draftboard is a favorite as well.

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Alder wood engraves nicely without much of any discoloration

I was bending a lot of bssswood but the shapes carved to fit the bent bssswood was mostly poplar that is a bit stronger and the two woods my first step away from plywokd… However the stronger and more brilluantly colored woods do make more spectacular rezults even if the prices are a lot higher.