I need help finding this material. I’ve been looking for years and have narrowed it down to melamine or draft board, but that’s all I’ve been able to come up with. Even ChapGPT has been unable to help. Any ideas?
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you may be overthinking it.
my guess to what it is (and how i’d approach making it)… i would use 1/4" baltic birch and then put black chalk paint (or plain flat black paint) on the surface. you can see the grain under the black, so it’s either flat black paint or chalkboard paint and people are using oil pens or one of those new sharpie acrylic creative markers on top. heck, it might even be that someone brushed india ink on top.
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I will also add that I’m guessing they used a router to cut it out and not a laser. The edges are completely clean, they don’t look lasered at all.
I will second the idea that somebody probably put an ink wash or thin paint on the wood and then lasered it away to get the lighter color underneath with a very high speed pass.
There are threads here on the forum about making light colored and graves on wood, and it always involves staining the surface and then just ablating the tiniest bit off.
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you’re probably right about the router, but it could also have been cut on a laser and then use a spindle sander to clean up the edges since the edges are not detailed.
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I cleaned up edges like that with a Dremel or even just a hand block. I’m just saying that if I were doing it and I was working on props for a wedding? I’d probably be looking at CNC.
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yes, i would love a CNC. can’t have it. not where i live. but i can do a spindle sander. and i do have spindle sanding drill bits for my hand drill. i could make it work with that if i didn’t have a CNC.
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Same but for me I’m space constrained and really accustomed to not making a ton of sawdust when I laser things.
And if you think your GF fan is loud…. Spindle CNC is a whole other class.
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“grinding” wood is not quiet, and that’s before even accounting for the motors.
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It looks like the material I previously (a few years ago) got at Home Depot.
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Another possibility is phenolic-coated plywood. This stuff is durable as hell, but do NOT process it with a laser. CNC cutter only (IMO). You may find people selling it saying it can be lasered, but it’s generally a bad idea – formaldehyde, corrosive VOCs, all kinds of thrills are on offer.
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Could also just have been black stain.
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It could be chalkboard from HD or Lowes. It’s sold in the project panel section of the lumber area. Usually painted black on one side & often white on the other. But that’s usually hardboard and the edges of the pictured project looks like a plywood which implies regular plywood painted with chalkboard paint (also at the big box stores).
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i hadn’t seen plywood painted w/chalkboard at the big box stores, only hardboard.
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home depot sells a whiteboard/chalkboard combo at least they used to.
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Home Depot and Menard’s still carries chalkboard panels last I checked.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/3-16-in-2-ft-x-4-ft-Black-Chalk-White-Marker-MDF-Board-00066
Home Depot SKU # 1005427985
The most recent application executed with it was fabricating an aluminum extrusion lemonade/tea stand and the panels were perfect functional walls. I don’t exactly remember if I sourced from Menards or Home Depot, but the “chalkboard” side is more of a textured plastic laminate that grabs chalk just fine… cleans thoroughly with no issues too.
I know that my F2 Ultra UV can be configured to engrave into woods (and presumably MDF/DraftBoard) without leaving CO2’s telltale scorch marks, but haven’t explored what happens when presented with the black laminate. If it punches through that getting to the MDF, it should be capable of achieving the center engrave of OP’s pic. The rest of the signatures around that would be achieved with metallic pens.
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Yep! I bought both before. It’s been a while though. I still have some 
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You are absolutely right that I’ve been overthinking this. I get tunnel-vision when it comes to my searches. I think after not easily finding it, it became a ‘mission from god’, per se. Your suggestion is well received and very much appreciated!
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There’s a look to the print that looks manufactured, and not natural.
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I do too. and interestingly depending on the actual SKU will determine if you cut through. I was going bonkers when I first got it. i used setting somebody else had shown to work. Well NOT the same exact product. had to change the settings after some failure 
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At first glance, I thought it might be phenolic coated MDF. However, upon closer inspection, it appears they used two sheets of probably 1/8-in MDF or hardboard glued together, and then used a stain or dark tinted shellac to create the dark surface.
My suggestion is that you could use draft board with a dark tinted shellac to achieve the same thing.
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