Materials
What we work with
Honest notes on the woods, sheet stock, plastics, and resin we run through the workshop.
Material is chosen project by project — from the look the piece needs through to how it will live with daylight, humidity, and use. The list below is what we keep on hand and what we source most often; if your project asks for something different, send the brief and we will tell you whether we can do it well.
What we work with
Oak
A workhorse hardwood with a prominent open grain that takes oil and hardwax finishes beautifully. Stable enough for kitchens and shelving, dense enough to hold a fine edge on a CNC cut. The honest trade-off: oak yellows under daylight over the years, and the open pores want filling before any glossy lacquer.
- Hardness: Hard
- Grain: Coarse
- Best for: Furniture
- Best for: CNC
Walnut
A premium dark hardwood with a calm, even grain — the wood we reach for when a piece needs to read as a feature rather than a background. Carves and machines cleanly, oils to a deep chocolate. The catch is price and supply: matched boards for a large run are not always easy to source, and we will tell you when oak with a dark stain is the smarter call.
- Hardness: Medium
- Grain: Medium
- Best for: Furniture
- Best for: Souvenirs
Ash
A light hardwood with working properties close to oak but a cleaner, straighter grain. Underrated for furniture and CNC parts where you want oak-like strength without the busy figure. Takes stain evenly — one of the few hardwoods that fakes walnut convincingly when the budget rules walnut out.
- Hardness: Hard
- Grain: Medium
- Best for: Furniture
- Best for: CNC
Birch
A fine-grained light wood that takes detail well — small CNC reliefs, turned souvenirs, anywhere a piece needs crisp edges and a pale tone. Common in plywood form too. Less stable than oak as a solid; we use it for small items or interior parts, not for wide solid panels that will live near a window.
- Hardness: Medium
- Grain: Fine
- Best for: Souvenirs
- Best for: CNC
Plywood (Baltic birch)
Engineered sheet stock that does not move the way solid wood does — the natural choice for cabinet boxes, jigs, and anything tall that has to stay flat. The layered edge is part of the look on a CNC-cut part; for a hidden-edge furniture build we band the edge in matching veneer. We use the cabinet grade for visible faces; the construction grade goes inside.
- Hardness: Medium
- Grain: Fine
- Best for: CNC
- Best for: Furniture
Acrylic
Clear or coloured plastic sheet — laser-cuts and CNC-mills to a glass-clean edge, holds a polished finish under good light. Useful for signage, jigs, display fittings, and any part where a translucent edge is part of the design. Scratches easily, so we wrap finished parts before delivery and we will recommend a hardened topcoat where wear is a concern.
- Best for: CNC
HDF (High-Density Fibreboard)
A dense engineered panel with a flawless paint surface — the right pick for painted cabinet fronts, signage backers, and CNC-cut shapes that will be primed and finished. Heavier than plywood and not water-tolerant, so we keep it away from wet zones and unfinished edges. If a piece will be left raw, this is not the material.
- Hardness: Medium
- Best for: CNC
Photopolymer (3D-print resin)
A UV-cured acrylic resin run on our two ProJet 3500 HDMax printers. Holds fine detail at resolutions a CNC bit cannot reach, and the casting-grade variant burns out clean for investment casting in brass or silver. Not load-bearing — these are master patterns, prototypes, and decorative fine-detail parts, not structural pieces.
- Best for: 3D printing
Got a project in mind?
Send us your files
If you already know what you want to build, send the drawings or the brief. We will come back with a material recommendation, a quote, and an honest read on the timeline.