Carved Wood Panels

Happy Friday Everyone! And Happy Veterans Day to all those who are serving or who have served our country! (Special shout out to the Hubs!)


Do you ever have this urge to finish something? Like it bothers you and you can't stop thinking about it? Lately I've been itching to get something hung on our walls in our living room. It's pretty bare, the curtains helped but I still had nothing on our walls. We've lived here almost 5 months- it's really becoming a problem. I mean a serious problem...

Hmmm, but what to do? Nothing was really catching my eye and I'm so indecisive! Ugh.. Then I remembered some wood panels I rescued from my old job before they tossed out.

They're walnut veneer panels cut ~12" x 12". They were submittals from a design job- we were to approve which wood grain we wanted for the job, but after that they were no longer needed. They were to pretty to throw away so I took them home instead of throwing them out. (This is one of the things I miss the most about working at an Architecture firm- all the cool samples!)

Solution!! I decided it would be neat to cut a pattern out of them and hang them on the wall. I started with an image I liked (a rubber stamp I had lying around) then scanned it on the printer. Then I resized it in Photoshop and printed it out.

After printing the pattern I cut it out and traced the image onto my panels. I used just enough pressure to make an indentation that I could use to follow and cut out later.

My original plan was to use my Dremel Trio to route out the pattern. Fail! All was going well until my bit burned up and became un-useable. I think the Dremel Trio is great, I think that it wasn't meant for this purpose. :/ This was a little too heavy duty for it I think. 

Anyway- I wasn't going to give up after this set back. So I made an appointment at the Base Wood Shop. If you are not in the military here's the DL- all bases have a craft and hobby shop. There's a ton of wood working machinery. Anything you can think of! And you can use any of it. I just took a short class on each of the machines and was good to go. 

Thank you US Military! The guy who works at ours is really helpful to. He gave me suggestions on the best way to cut my panels and which order in which to make my cuts.

So I set to work on the Band Saw. I felt all Bad @ss with the big saw cutting out my panels. 

The task was actually a lot easier with the Band Saw than with the Dremel. It was like slicing through butter even though my panels were almost 1" thick.

After a little sanding around the edges I screwed some picture hangers in the back and was good to go!

Viola! Free one of a kind wall art!

Some overall shots; I'm not sure if the panels are to narrow for the space I hung them in or not. What do you think?

If you wanted to try this on your own you could use plywood or MDF cut down to size. You could stain it or paint it any color you wanted. If you don't have access to a Band Saw depending on the depth of your wood and how intricate your pattern is you could use a scroll saw or jig saw instead. 

Happy Weekend Everyone!