★ FROM THE WORKSHOP
The DigitalChiselCo Blog
Long-form guides from the workshop: finishing, carve time, scaling, judging a file, choosing software, lasers, gifts and first projects. Written to be read once and used for years.
How a Pro Carved Our Wolf and Raven in Walnut, Every Setting Step by Step
Jeff Miller of Burl & Curl Woodworking carved our Wolf and Raven relief in walnut and shared every number: board and model size, the corn cob roughing pass, the 1/16 inch tapered ball nose finish, how he darkened the raven before oil, and the boiled linseed finish. A real job, from rough board to finished panel.
CNC Relief Stepover: What It Buys You, and What It Costs
Stepover buys finishing time with ridges, and nothing else. Measured on a real bass relief at 300 mm: ridge heights and finishing times for 8 to 40 percent stepover, what the ridges look like, which stepover suits each way of finishing, and why a bigger ball at a finer stepover is faster.
3 mm vs 1.5 mm Ball Nose for CNC Relief Carving: What Detail Survives, and How Rest Machining Halves the Time
We simulated five real relief designs to measure what a 6 mm, 3 mm and 1.5 mm ball nose each miss. The 3 mm gets 97 to 99 percent of the surface; a 1.5 mm rest pass gets the rest in about half the time of running it everywhere. With rest-machining setup for Aspire, VCarve Pro, Fusion, Carveco and Carbide Create.
How to Laser Burn Onto a CNC Carving, With or Without a Laser Camera
Carve it on the CNC, then burn tone into it on the laser without moving it. How to line a burn up on a carving that already exists, whether your laser has a camera or not, with a real customer job from start to finish, what to burn, focus and testing, and notes for WeCreat owners.
How to Make a CNC Valet Tray, and the Serving Tray That Comes Next
A tray is the first project where the pocket matters more than the picture. This guide cuts a valet tray start to finish with real numbers: stock thickness against pocket depth, the floor you must not cut through, clearing toolpaths and the corner problem, tabs that hold without tearing, feeds for four classes of machine, and the food-safe finish rule that decides whether a serving tray is legal to use.
How to 3D Print a Lampshade in One Piece, Bulb Holder and All
Most lampshade STLs leave you gluing a separate bulb ring into the bottom. This guide prints the whole lamp as one continuous vase-mode spiral with the E27 holder already part of it: the one number your slicer needs, the wall and layer settings that decide whether it glows or looks grey, the safety rule about bulbs that nobody mentions, and twelve free shades sized for a 220 mm bed.
How to Make a Carved Wooden Coat Hanger on a CNC
A carved hanger is the rare project that gets handled every day. This guide carves one start to finish with our own setup-card numbers: the size to pick and why it changes the stock thickness, the grain rule that decides whether it holds a coat or snaps, feeds for four classes of machine, fitting the screw-in hook, and the finish that must cure before a jacket touches it.
How to Colour a CNC Relief Carving So It Still Looks Like Wood
The tinted-wash method behind the coloured carvings on this site, stage by stage on one cardinal panel: sealing, mixing thin washes from artists' acrylics, laying the first colour, shading, keeping the ground clean, the glaze that ties it all together, and the matte topcoat. With the products, brands and colour recipes that work.
Photo to Bas-Relief STL: Which Photos Carve Well, and Which Never Will
A relief made from a photo is only as good as the photo. Here is what the conversion actually does with your picture, the five things that make a portrait or pet photo carve cleanly, the four that ruin it before you start, and how to shoot one that works, whether you carve it on a router or print it flat on an FDM machine.
Your First CNC Relief Carving, Start to Finish: File, Board, Setup, Cut, Finish, Hang
The complete walk-through for a first relief carving on a hobby router: choosing a file that will forgive you, the board, the CAM setup in plain steps, clamping and zeroing, the roughing and finishing passes, the finish, and hanging it. One weekend, one board, with links to the deeper guide at every step.
Selling What You Carve: Pricing CNC Relief Carvings, What Sells, and What the Licence Allows
A pricing formula that survives contact with a craft fair, the numbers behind it, what actually sells (from our own sales data), how to photograph and present a carving so it fetches its price, where to sell, and exactly what our file licence lets you do.
3D Printing a Bas-Relief STL: Settings That Keep the Detail, and How to Make Plastic Look Like Wood
Relief files print beautifully if you print them flat, at fine layers, in the right material, and then paint them like a carving. Layer height, orientation, infill, FDM versus resin, the lettering problem, and the prime-wash-dry-brush finish that makes a print pass for wood.
Why Your CNC Relief Carving Looks Flat, and the Seven Fixes in Order
The carving is finished, it is nothing like the picture, and everyone blames the file. Nine times in ten it is one of seven things, and most of them take an hour to fix. Here they are in the order to check them, with what each one looks like.
Tapered Ball Nose Bits for Relief Carving: Which Tip, Which Stepover, Which Pass
The cutter that does most of the work in relief carving, explained: why the taper matters, what each tip size can and cannot render, the stepover that goes with it, feeds for a hobby machine, why straight ball noses snap, and the three-cutter set that covers everything.
The Best Wood for CNC Relief Carving: One Design Carved in Eight Species
We carved the same whitetail buck in cherry, walnut, maple, basswood, white oak, poplar, sapele and pine, and photographed them side by side. Which woods hold detail, which blotch, which fight the cutter, and what each one costs, so you can pick a board with your eyes open.
Why Your Relief Carving Takes Three Days, and How to Make It Three Hours
A 20 by 12 inch relief on a single 1/8 inch ball nose can run for six days. The same panel with a roughing pass, a bit ladder and a boundary around the fine detail runs in an afternoon. The method, the maths and the settings.
The Carved Wood Gift Guide: What to Carve for Anglers, Cabins, Faith, Weddings and the People Who Have Everything
Twenty-five relief designs that make gifts people keep, sorted by who you are giving to, with the wood, the size and the time each one really takes. Plus the Christmas calendar that tells you when to start.
How to Finish a CNC Relief Carving: The Complete Guide
Finishing is what decides whether a relief carving reads or falls flat. The full method, from machining fuzz to the antique glaze that makes the depth show, with the products and tools that work.
STL Files for Laser Engraving: How to Turn a Relief File Into a Photo-Depth Burn
A laser cannot carve depth, but it can fake it beautifully. How a relief STL becomes a grayscale depth map, which lasers and materials work, LightBurn and xTool settings to start from, and the mistakes that turn a good file into a muddy burn.
What Makes a Good Bas-Relief STL File (and the Seven Red Flags Before You Buy)
Most relief STL files for sale have never been carved by the person selling them. The four things a file must do, the one signal that predicts a good carve, how to check a file in five minutes with free tools, and the red flags you can spot from the listing alone.
10 Beginner CNC Bas-Relief Projects to Carve This Weekend, in the Right Order
Ten relief carvings sized for a Saturday and one piece of stock, sorted from easiest to hardest, each with the file, the wood, the bits, the time, and the one thing it teaches. Plus the four-bit kit that covers all of them.
Aspire vs VCarve vs Carveco vs Fusion 360: Which CAM Software for Relief Carving?
The honest comparison for carving bas-relief STL files: what each package does with a relief, what it costs in 2026, the bed-size and licence catches, and three plain recommendations depending on what you actually carve. Easel and Carbide Create included, because people ask.
How to Scale STL Files for CNC Routers Without Ruining the Detail
Scaling a relief STL to fit your board is where most disappointing carvings begin. The three numbers that matter, the depth rule, the bit-to-feature rule, the board-thickness floor, and exactly where each setting lives in Aspire, VCarve, Carveco and Fusion.