My wood specialist

I need some help trying to engrave a non pg board. I looked through the google doc of materials and settings Problem is I have no idea what type of wood this is but I have to use this material being supplied to me. Can anyone help with a starting point or maybe scan someone identify the material??? Thank you

Looks like yellow pine. Fairly soft, but very inconsistent. And if you decide to use it, watch it close, pine tar can burn like gasoline.

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Possibly SPF (Spruce/pine/fir) construction lumber. As robermar36 said, it will be inconsistent (dark parts will be denser than light parts) and you need to watch out for knots and pitch pockets. Likely also need to be jointed to make a smooth (even) surface.

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Third vote for pine. (Four actually, I asked hubs for his opinion on it as well.)

What type of thing are you wanting to engrave on it? A photo? A logo?

I ask because trying to burn pine in your machine is going to make a real mess, you are going to have one hell of a time trying to clean the fans afterwards from the sticky resin build up, and the potential for flaming, so if the customer insists on it, charge extra for the hassle of cleaning it.

You can use any of the Engrave settings on it, but I’d stick with SD or Draft, not HD, because that’s going to burn really deep and throw up more junk. And be ready to stop the print if you have a flame that reaches up towards the head too far.

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Pine. The winter growth rings are considerably harder than the wide, summer growth, so they will be raised in comparison. That might actually work well, but testing with the file is the only way to know what the effect will be.
Have fun exploring the material!

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Soft wood with distinct grain results will depend on the design because the grain will still be significant in the image. For example, forget about any kind of photo, but it could work with a blocky, simple graphic.

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Thank you all for your information. The request was to place a small logo on the lower end and a another tournament logo on the the top with title and dates

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How are you going to get it in the machine? :thinking:

Would it work to tack a smaller sign in a thinner material to the board?

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I have the pro version with the pass through

How thick is that board? The passthrough is only for 1/4" material. Please share your successful result now that you know what kind of wood you have.

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That looks quite thick. Are you planning on planing it down to 1/4"?

Also - the various “layers” of the grain will engrave at different depths. I’ve done quite a bit of old cedar fencing for frames, and when I do deep engraves (all black, no grey contrast anywhere), it’s interesting how it burns into the wood.

If you engraved a black box across that piece as shown above, you’d see what I’m talking about - the growth rings (latewood) will not engrave as deep as the lighter wood (earlywood). It’s a pretty cool effect, but something to keep in mind if you’re looking for consistency across the piece.

Here’s a shot of what I’m talking about - old cedar fence boards (run through my planer first) then engraved. It’s hard to really see in this pic, but you can see the grain of the wood in the pic, and that’s not as deep as the rest of the engrave.

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Thank you for your input. I love that cedar plank

That frame turned out really well. I’m building another right now and trying to figure out what to engrave into it. Don’t want to keep doing a pine forest!

I do hope you have better wood supplied to you. That looks like a rough 2 by 4. It will take a lot of work to make that usable.

Perhaps a cedar forest :joy:

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Here is a quick pine engrave I did as a test for someone else. It might provide a start.

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Bear

Yes but will he be able to see the trees for the forest? :joy::rofl:

Actually did pine trees out of walnut for frames on other prints. They turned out pretty well!

And I etched a bear on the front of a Moleskine notebook. That turned out pretty cool as well.