The Woodshop Shed

Making a Leaf Applique

Furnished content.
(from WoodNet.net)


My friend is (slowly) building a Thorsen sideboard, which looks like this.



It's based on one in FWW a couple of years ago. On the doors, the designer added Ginko leaves in sort of a falling pattern. My friend's wife is Canadian and suggested he use maple leaves. So I agreed to see about making some maple leaves using my CNC.

I started with a 2.5D file in the clip art included with my VCarve Pro software. W/o changing anything other than scaling it to about 3" x 3", I created the toolpaths and made this prototype.



It takes 3 toolpaths and bits to create the part, a 0.25" endmill to remove the waste, a 0.125 ballnose endmill to mill the surface of the leaf, and a 0.125" endmill to cut around the perimeter of the leaf to a depth of 1/4". At modest speeds,milling time was about 35 minutes. To release the leaf from the board, I resawed it on my bandsaw set at 1/4". This is what it looked like afterwards.



I did no sanding of the leaf; this is straight off the CNC. To make it look like a maple leaf, I dyed it with some Honey Amber Transtint and then put on a couple of coats of Polycrylic.



Why not red? The cabinet is being made from mahogany, so red's probably not going to show very well. However, I could see doing a collage of colors on one or more of the leaves to replicate how actual leaves often look.

The leaves are flat on the back, so they can be glued directly to the cabinet wherever desired.

This was just a test. When it comes time to make the ones for the project, I'll adjust the size and shape of the leaves to create a realistic mix. Also, the surface detail can be changed by the bits used to mill them. A smaller diameter ballnose endmillwould give greater detail, while a larger diameter would give less. What we end up making will depend on what look the builder wants.

This is another example where the CNC makes it possible to pretty easily do what would be very difficult to do by hand.

John

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