Embossing Graphics By 3D Printing On Wood

September 19, 2024 by Dave Rowntree 9 Comments

Embossing (making raised shapes) and debossing (making sunken shapes) on 3D-printed surfaces is not a new idea; we do it all the time. [Cory] from Vancouver Hack Space was playing around with 3D printing on wood, and came up with the idea of creating raised tactile surfaces using a simple transfer process.

We don’t often try to print directly onto a wooden surface for various reasons, but [Cory] wanted to give it a go. They hoped to get some grain patterns to transfer to the surface, but as they say in the blog entry, the beauty of wood patterns is in the colouration, which doesn’t transfer. Next, they laser etched a logo into the wood surface to see how well that would transfer. It did create a discernable raised impression, but they forgot to mirror the image (oops!) and relevel the bed, so the results are less impressive than they could be. Still, it’s another useful technique to consider.

Embossing is the process by which braille sheets are made. This DIY braille encoder is pretty sweet. Of course, the process can simply be decorative. Here’s how to use a laser cutter to create your own embossing seals. The traditional way to emboss paper for a fancy effect was to use embossing powder to selectively change the properties of drying paper. But how can you make the stuff for cheap?

Ultra-Black Material, Sustainably Made From Wood

September 2, 2024 by Donald Papp 40 Comments

Researchers at the University of British Columbia leveraged an unusual discovery into ultra-black material made from wood. The deep, dark black is not the result of any sort of dye or surface coating; it’s structural change to the wood itself that causes it to swallow up at least 99% of incoming light.

One of a number of prototypes for watch faces and jewelry.

The discovery was partially accidental, as researchers happened upon it while looking at using high-energy plasma etching to machine the surface of wood in order to improve it’s water resistance. In the process of doing so, they discovered that with the right process applied to the right thickness and orientation of wood grain, the plasma treatment resulted in a surprisingly dark end result. Fresh from the plasma chamber, a wood sample has a thin coating of white powder that, once removed, reveals an ultra-black surface.

The resulting material has been dubbed Nxylon (the name comes from mashing together Nyx, the Greek goddess of darkness, with xylon the Greek word for wood) and has been prototyped into watch faces and jewelry. It’s made from natural materials, the treatment doesn’t create or involve nasty waste, and it’s an economical process. For more information, check out UBC’s press release.

You have probably heard about Vantablack (and how you can’t buy any) and artist Stuart Semple’s ongoing efforts at making ever-darker and accessible black paint. Blacker than black has applications in optical instruments and is a compelling thing in the art world. It’s also very unusual to see an ultra-black anything that isn’t the result of a pigment or surface coating.

Welding Wood Is As Simple As Rubbing Two Sticks Together

July 21, 2024 by Dan Maloney 12 Comments

Can you weld wood? It seems like a silly question — if you throw a couple of pieces of oak on the welding table and whip out the TIG torch, you know nothing is going to happen. But as [Action Lab] shows us in the video below, welding wood is technically possible, if not very practical.

Since experiments like this sometimes try to stretch things a bit, it probably pays to define welding as a process that melts two materials at their interface and fuses them together as the molten material solidifies. That would seem to pose a problem for wood, which just burns when heated. But as [Action Lab] points out, it’s the volatile gases released from wood as it is heated that actually burn, and the natural polymers that are decomposed by the heat to release these gases have a glass transition temperature just like any other polymer. You just have to heat wood enough to reach that temperature without actually bursting the wood into flames.

His answer is one of the oldest technologies we have: rubbing two sticks together. By chucking a hardwood peg into a hand drill and spinning it into a slightly undersized hole in a stick of oak, he created enough heat and pressure to partially melt the polymers at the interface. When allowed to cool, the polymers fuse together, and voila! Welded wood. Cutting his welded wood along the joint reveals a thin layer of material that obviously underwent a phase change, so he dug into this phenomenon a bit and discovered research into melting and welding wood, which concludes that the melted material is primarily lignin, a phenolic biopolymer found in the cell walls of wood.

[Action Lab] follows up with an experiment where he heats bent wood in a vacuum chamber with a laser to lock the bend in place. The experiment was somewhat less convincing but got us thinking about other ways to exclude oxygen from the “weld pool,” such as flooding the area with argon. That’s exactly what’s done in TIG welding, after all. Continue reading “Welding Wood Is As Simple As Rubbing Two Sticks Together” →

Automation Makes Traditional Japanese Wood Finishing Easier

March 28, 2024 by Dan Maloney 21 Comments

Unless you move in architectural circles, you might never have heard of Yakisugi. But as a fence builder, [Lucas] over at Cranktown City sure has, with high-end clients requesting the traditional Japanese wood-finishing method, which requires the outer surface of the wood to be lightly charred. It’s a fantastic look, but it’s a pain to do manually. So, why not automate it?

Now, before we get into a whole thing here, [Lucas] himself notes that what he’s doing isn’t strictly Yakisugi. That would require the use of cypress wood, and charring only one side, neither of which would work for his fence clients. Rather, he’s using regular dimensional lumber which is probably Douglas fir. But the look he’s going for is close enough to traditional Yakisugi that the difference is academic.

To automate the process of burning the wood and subsequently brushing off the loose char, [Lucas] designed a double-barreled propane burner and placed it inside a roughly elliptical chamber big enough to pass a 2×8 — sorry, metric fans; we have no idea how you do dimensional lumber. The board rides through the chamber on a DIY conveyor track, with flame swirling around both sides of the board for an even char. After that, a pair of counter-rotating brushes abrade off the top layer of char, revealing a beautiful, dark finish with swirls of dark grain on a lighter background.

[Lucas] doesn’t mention how much wood he’s able to process with this setup, but it seems a lot easier than the manual equivalent, and likely yields better results. Either way, the results are fantastic, and we suspect once people see his work he’ll be getting more than enough jobs to justify the investment.

Continue reading “Automation Makes Traditional Japanese Wood Finishing Easier” →

A man standing next to a log holds a wooden mallet and a grey froe with a wooden handle. The froe's long straight blade sits atop the end of the log. Several cuts radiate out from the center of the log going through the length of the wood.

Making Wooden Shingles With Hand Tools

February 22, 2024 by Navarre Bartz 23 Comments

While they have mostly been replaced with other roofing technologies, wooden shingles have a certain rustic charm. If you’re curious about how to make them by hand, [Harry Rogers] takes us through his friend [John] making some.

There are two primary means of splitting a log for making shingles (or shakes). The first is radial, like one would cut a pie, and the other is lateral, with all the cuts in the same orientation. Using a froe, the log is split in progressively smaller halves to control the way the grain splits down the length of the log and minimize waste. Larger logs result in less waste and lend themselves to the radial method, while smaller logs must be cut laterally. Laterally cut shingles have a higher propensity for warping and other issues, but will work when larger logs are not available.

Once the pieces are split out of the log, they are trimmed with an axe, including removing the outer sapwood which is the main attractant for bugs and other creatures that might try eating your roof. Once down to approximately the right dimensions, the shingle is then smoothed out on a shave horse with a draw knife. Interestingly, the hand-made shingles have a longer lifespan than those sawn since the process works more with the grain of the wood and introduces fewer opportunities for water to seep into the shingles.

If you’re looking for something more solarpunk and less cottagecore for your house, maybe try a green solar roof, and if you’ve got a glass roof, try cleaning it with the Grawler.

Continue reading “Making Wooden Shingles With Hand Tools” →

A large, short set of tree stumps supports many smaller, straight trees atop them. They are on a picturesque mountain with a orange deciduous tree behind them.

Daisugi – Growing Straight Lumber Without Killing The Tree

February 20, 2024 by Navarre Bartz 30 Comments

In 14th Century Japan, there was a shortage of straight lumber for building and flat land on which to grow it. Arborists there developed a technique that looks like growing trees on top of trees, called daisugi.

Similar to the European practice of pollarding for firewood and basket materials, daisugi has been likened to bonsai on steroids. Starting with a Japanese cedar tree, one chops the top off the tree once it has grown to sufficient size to survive this initial shock. The following spring, you start carefully guiding the new growth through pruning to create tall, straight trunks on top of the “platform cedar.” Pruning takes place approximately every two years and harvesting every twenty. A daisugi tree can produce new shoots for several hundred years if properly maintained.

Although often used as a decorative technique today, it seems like an interesting way to grow your own perfect lumber if you have the room for it. We suspect the technique could be used on other species that lend themselves to pollarding like oak or maple, but harvest times and reliable straight trunks might vary. With sustainable production of wood for cross-laminated timber (CLT) and other advanced timbers being of growing importance, we wonder if these techniques could make a comeback?

Continue reading “Daisugi – Growing Straight Lumber Without Killing The Tree” →

A white man with red hair in pigtails under a brown cap holds an axe with a black head and wooden handle. The axe has a rectangular box welded onto the back side of its trapezoidal head.

Deadblow Axe Splits Wood With Minimal Rebound

February 16, 2024 by Navarre Bartz 17 Comments

Dead-blow hammers are well-known in the construction industry for minimizing rebound. [Jacob Fischer] is on a mission to bring this concept to splitting axes.

Over the course of several months, [Fischer] has been working on adding a dead-blow to a splitting axe. This fifth iteration uses a custom-forged head from blacksmith [Todd Elder] with a dead-blow box welded to the poll. The combination of the head geometry and the dead-blow distributing the delivery of force seems to result in a very effective splitting axe.

The dead-blow portion of the axe is a steel box filled with lead (Pb) BBs. Since the BBs are trailing the axe head within the box, the force from the BBs is delivered later than the initial impact of the steel axe head onto the block of wood, allowing the full force of the blow to be spread out over more time. Dead-blow hammers typically use polymers to further absorb any rebound energy, so there is some limit to the extent rebound can be reduced as seen in the testing portion of the video.

Looking for other ways to split wood? How about this cross-bladed axe or maybe a log splitter or two? If you’re curious about how they used to make axes in the old days, we’ve got you covered there too.

Continue reading “Deadblow Axe Splits Wood With Minimal Rebound” →