In part 1 of “Coffee Table with 3D carving” we covered preliminary concepts and ideas and then got into some of the design aspects of this project.  In this part, we will cover the carving aspects.

CNC Carving

This coffee table was a challenge to carve.  The wood carving was completed in two stages.  First we used CNC router carving to remove most of the material.  This encompassed what is called a “toolpath” file that had over 2.3 million instructions that were interpreted by the CNC machine to make it go back and forth and up and down along the table top.  All the while there is a very sharp cutting bit spinning at about 12000 revolutions per minute to clear the wood.  This is a large and complex carving.  It took the CNC machine almost 25 hours to complete the carving work.

To see what we are covering in the text below, click through the pictures in the gallery below.  You can see the machine  wood carving in action by viewing our YouTube videos below.  The first video shows the process of carving the wildlife scene in the top of the table.  The second video shows how the “worm tracks” were put into the aprons on the table.  The last video shows how the legs were textured to achieve a more rustic look.

Hand Carving

The next step in a project like this is to take the work done by the machine and refine it using hand chisels and sandpaper.  The 3-axis machine can, at best, cut straight down into the surface of the wood.  It cannot undercut the different parts in the carving – like the elk or eagle.  Hand carving utilizes several different chisels.  The idea is to clear the wood under parts of the carving to make features really stand out.  For example, the elk located center left had a lot of hand carving done to make it pop out from the background.   This makes the head look like it is floating above the background.  In this carving that is the effect we wanted to achieve. The eagle was another area where hand carving really made it stick out from the background.

You can see some of the detail after the hand carving has been completed.  The last picture shows the table top with all the hand carving completed.  At this point it is ready to have sealer applied so I can start the coloring part of the project.  We will cover the finishing in part 3 of this series.  That will be the last article in the series.

I appreciate your taking the time to read along and see how a coffee table is taken from a simple wood table to a one of a kind table.

Go to part 3 of making a coffee table.