Hi all, I am looking to do a lithophane as a Christmas surprise for my wife. Has anyone done this in wood before? If so, are there better woods? Can I use walnut or is that too dark? Would maple be a better choice? Also any tutorials would be great. I have CC Pro and did the image import and then 3D rough, then 3D finish pass. Would a taper ball nose like Ultra-High Detail 3D Carving Taper Ball Nose Bit For CNC Routers, 1/4 – IDC Woodcraft work best? I want to get as much detail as I can.
I think it would be more the transparency of each wood species, rather than it’s color.
I imagine most woods would need to get really thin to pass light.
Are you intending on cutting the relief on the front or back?
Either way, it might be good to back up the wood with something clear like epoxy.
I would do a test cut or 2 to see how transparent your wood is at different thicknesses.
I have seen some wood lamp shades, so it must be possible.
I’ve done a couple with my 3D printer, but not my CNC. The one thing that I found worked best was to have different colors or shades at the different levels to help distinguish the different features. If I was to try it with wood I would consider making a laminate with different dark and light wood tones. Not sure if you could accomplish this with staining afterwards or not. Just a couple of ideas.
I did a lot of lithophanes with my son, though none out of wood. For us, Corian was the best option with Delrin as a backup. 1/4" thick is all you need in either case. For the brightest areas, I seem to recall that we needed to get to .7-2mm thick.
Just taking a guess, I suspect that wood needs to be thinner than plastic, so I would try gluing some thin wood (maybe a thick veneer) to clear acrylic so you can machine the wood very thin without it becoming fragile.
Instead of acrylic, another option would be pour a few mm of epoxy over the wood before cutting so you don’t need to find a compatible glue.
I have no idea if any of that will work, so feel free to ignore me.