Adding Laser Engraving to Ward's Woodcrafts
This week marked another important step in building Ward's Woodcrafts: I set up my new laser engraver and started putting it to work.
Until now, much of the shop has been centered around traditional woodworking and CNC machining. Adding the laser gives me another way to combine woodworking with detailed personalization and artwork.
Some of my first experiments were dog portraits engraved onto live-edge wood slices. I also tried several other designs to begin learning how different artwork and different pieces of wood react to the laser.
These aren't finished products for sale yet. They are part of the development process. Ward's Woodcrafts is still being built—setting up equipment, improving the shop, developing ideas, making prototypes and learning which processes produce results I'm happy enough to eventually put my name on.
I also spent some time this week cleaning and reorganizing the shop. With CNC, laser, woodworking and metalworking equipment all competing for space, developing an efficient shop layout is becoming a project of its own.
There is plenty left to do, but every new machine that gets set up and every successful test piece gets Ward's Woodcrafts a little closer to where I want it to be.
American Made by an American Dad.
