Lasering Basswood

[Jim A. Walters]

I have read much here on SMC, but I never hear of basswood mentioned. Is basswood lowly rated among woodworkers? It seems to laser great!

Now the story:

In early October of 2003 our scout troop took a backpacking trip loop on the North Country Trail / Manistee River Trail in NW Michigan. It started raining as we setup camp on Friday night, but stopped in the morning. Once we were on the trail, it started lightly raining again with temps around 45 deg. By lunch time it was raining HARD and the temps started dropping. By the time we were at the 12 mile mark, we knew we were in trouble! We found this house with a nice older couple that allowed us to come under their carport out of the rain. The couple had all of us come into the basement and made us hot cocoa. Her husband took our other Scoutmaster down to the trail head to retrieve our vehicle so we could depart for home. I am sure they literally saved our lives. When we were leaving Cadillac, MI, it was snowing so hard you couldn't see the road signs.

I found a basswood slab at a local craft store to make a memorable thank you for this couple. I found the art online, and received permission to use the eagle head on the plaque.

This was one of my first laser jobs I ever did. The eagle was changed to greyscale and the plaque was done in "3D".

[Joe Pelonio]

Nice thank-you gift Jim. Speaking of scouts, I use basswood a lot every spring to make items sold at BSA Camp Parsons here on the Olympic Penninsula. My son has ben on staff there several years, currently as camp medic. I make wooden postcards and refrigerator magnets with 1/16" & 1/4" basswood and give them a great price, and they double it and sell lots of them at their trading post (I really don't make anything on them). I also do some 8" square tiles which they sell but they are more often bought by the staff and not nearly as many.

[Lee DeRaud]

I have read much here on SMC, but I never hear of basswood mentioned. Is basswood lowly rated among woodworkers? It seems to laser great!

Key words to describe basswood are "soft" and "grainless": great properties for woodcarving, not so great for most other woodworking. And it seems like the only place I ever see it is in hobby stores (as in model boats and planes), priced obscenely high.

I've got a couple of pieces laying around, haven't tried lasering it yet.

[Keith Outten]

Jim,

I have a rather large rocking horse (Clydesdale) that I am trying to find the time to finish that is basswood. I selected basswood for the same reasons that carvers use it as my Clydesale has lots of detail and parts that require shaping/sanding.

I have done some engraving with basswood and it does engrave well.