I am looking for a thin wood that will actually bend. I am trying to attach them to hats. I bought some balsa wood, it engraved wonderfully but it will not bend for anything, and its 1mm thick. Anyone got any ideas as to what they used on this hat?
Looks like it’s possibly a veneer mounted onto leather, or some other material.
Yea it’s mounted to leather. Maybe I need to go find some veneer. I like the way this turned out, but it refuses to bend.
Steam and a form press, anything’ll bend with the right persuasion
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Good idea, I tired the wood I cut the US out of, turned it opposite direction and was able to make it bend.
Wood is especially resistant to bending in one direction, and quite bendable at 90 degrees to that.
Check to see which way the grain goes, then orient the image appropriately.
Fred
Perhaps it was cut that way ie on a bandsaw and then sanded down, Does look as though it was bent. seems the bit on the back supports the wood otherwise it would break easily.
@daddycreswell I haven’t done with on a laser before but I’ve finished a lot of curved inlays over the years. If you go with a standard veneer around 1/64" thick you should have no problem getting it to conform. Rockler is my goto place for quality veneer.
If you only what it to bend once and then firm up I would go with a little thicker veneer and then steam bend it once it has been cut/engraved.
Another method would lasering multiple small cuts on the backside
same method as video…smaller scale
Yes, it is a veneer and a good job I would also like to learn how to do it.