Chinese Dragon grayscale relief

[Bruce]

Dragon relief carving
Material: MDF
Software: ArtCAM
Tools: 1/8" ball endmill, 1.5mm ball endmill, 60deg V-Bit
Color: Varathane Barn Red Stain, DecoArt acrylic paint in Gold "Extra Sheen", Black and Holiday Green. 

This was another grayscale image I imported into ArtCAM. I created the raised border as a relief and added the V-bit cut down the center.
The lettering was also cut with the V-bit in the lower right which means "Year of the Dragon" or actually "Dragon's Year", since there is no "of the" in Chinese.    

I painted the whole thing with the red stain. Then painted the dragon gold.  I tried various colors for shading and finally found black and green seemed to fit.
I ruffed up the edges with some light hits of sandpaper to get an antique effect. then sprayed a few coats of some satin lacquer to finish it off.  

The red came out much darker than I thought it would. I would have liked it to be a bit lighter. But over all I thought the project came out good. 

[maury]

Love it! I have collected many of the "Chinese" grayscales to use although I make items on a smaller dimensional scale. I find using Padauk wood and finishing with poly provides a wonderful red close to what I see in pictures of Chinese carvings. I'm in the states and buy scrollsaw wood from Ocoochhardwoods. I use the 400W 12K spindle pretty much maxed out RPM wise. Been thinking of a smaller VFD unit for an increase in spindle speed. Do you like your VFD? Typically, what spindle speeds are you using for hardwood reliefs?

[Bruce]

I pretty much know nothing about wood types and still buy wood from the local big box hardware. So I've been using pine (softwood) MDF and red oak.
The VFD has been working very good for me. The spindle speed range I can use is 8000 to 24000 RPM. Typically I use the 24000 RPM with the smaller 1.5mm diameter end mills and usually 18000 RPM for 3mm diameter or larger end mills.

[maury]

Ditto on wood types except for what I've experimented with. Put speedier spindle on wish list, check.

[rowiac]

Nice! How did you get the textured surface effect for the background of the dragon?

[Bruce]

That background was just the way the finish of the MDF came out, it wasn't planned. The background was a flat cut between the relief and the frame border. I think it was more the way the stain soaked into the MDF that caused the texture. Kind of a happy accident. 😉
Probably couldn't repeat it if I had to.

EDIT:
Going back through some video (I'm trying to put together a tutorial video) I forgot that I had used a water-base sanding sealer before the stain.  So I think while the MDF was soaking in the sanding sealer the texture popped up like a wood grain would.    

[aquanub]

very cool. what was the cut time on something like this?

[Derek the Admin]

That's pretty nice Bruce. Thanks for posting it.

[ahahlberg]

Beautiful. Thanks for the details on what you used. I had no idea that carving MDF would result in such an interesting finished look - looks almost ancient! Great job!

[Bruce]

Jun 20, 2019 10:31:41 GMT aquanub said:

very cool. what was the cut time on something like this?

Using the 1/8" ball nose for the rough cut took about an hour.  The 1.5mm ball nose for the finish cut took about 4.5 hours. Of course the V-bit boarder and lettering part only takes a few minutes.

I may be able to push the feed a bit faster with the finish cut but I've been getting such good results with what I've been doing I don't want to mess it up by pushing the limits.  

[rowiac]

Yeah, there's nothing as disappointing as being 2 hours into a finish cut and all of sudden I hear a bunch of noise and see smoke. For some reason my X or Y drive lost steps and was trying to make my 1/8" ball nose carve a 1/2" deep path. I attribute it to running too high of a feed, but my belt drive M3 is probably more susceptible to this than a Carve King with its lead screw drive.  Now I just go slowly and try to be patient.

[dcdear]

Beautiful work, thanks for posting.

[DickieB]

Gee whiz that’s good!