Wood is the most commonly used laser processing material and it is easy to sculpt and cut. Light-colored wood such as birch, cherry, or maple is well-lasered by lasers, making it more suitable for carving. Each wood has its own characteristics, some dense, such as hardwood, use more laser power when carving or cutting. Before carving wood that is less familiar, we suggest to first study its engraving characteristics.


According to different laser engraving methods for wood materials, laser engraving of wood materials can be divided into the following three categories:


Cutting and carving is the use of cutting methods to produce the desired pattern on the surface of the wooden material, that is, the pattern is first decomposed into several lines, and then the lines are cut out by the laser to obtain the pattern represented by the cutting line.


The die carving cuts off the pattern portion, while the portion of the pattern periphery leaves the surface of the wooden material as it is. Here is divided into two cases, the first situation is the same intensity of each point on the pattern, the sculptured pattern is mainly reflected by the outline shape; the second situation is based on the distribution of the pattern of lightness and darkness, contrast, etc. The "dark" part of the pattern is cut off more, and the "bright" part of the pattern is cut off or not removed. The former is suitable for sculpting texts, animals, plants, and other patterns that are mainly represented by appearance, while the latter is more suitable for carving patterns with details such as facial expressions of people.


Contrary to convex carving, convex carving is only cutting the material around the pattern, and the cutting force is the same at each point, but the pattern material itself is not cut off. This engraving method is suitable for the expression of characters, graphic outlines, and the like. In the latter two engraving methods, the cutting of the material is such that the laser head cuts a linear groove every time it is moved on the resection surface, and then cuts the next line after a small distance. Usually the distance between two slots can be O.05-0.5mm. In this way, through the multiple linear grooving, the purpose of removing the material of the area required by the two engraving forms is achieved. Of course, in the second form of the intaglio carving, the size of the notch, especially the depth of the notch, will change according to need on the same cutting line.

CNC Router for Wood Working Video PEM 1325: https://youtu.be/Xvad4g9q-_o