Today I'll show you how to make an engraved wooden keychain with a nano usb drive, which is sure to come in handy more than once.

We'll use a laser engraving machine which I got from Gearbest, easy to assemble and operate.

Video for mobile devices.

Step 1: Cutting

Let's start making our keychain. I will use this piece of rosewood. We cut the piece into the desired width, and cut a hole for the flash drive on both ends with a router. The hole must be tight enough to hold the drive in place, so we'll give it the final touch by hand to ensure it's perfect.

We cut the two pieces that will make up the keychain and insert the flash drive again to see if it fits right. In this case, I need to trim it a little more.

Step 2: Glue and Sand

Now we are ready to glue the pieces. Once dry, we'll sand the entire piece and we'll smooth out the corners with the beltsander.

Step 3: CNC Software

We'll place the piece of wood on the laser engraving machine and run the CNC software.

First, we run Beambox, choose a language and load the controller firmware. Once loaded, we choose the COM port associated with our controller and press the right arrow to change the PPM and Feed Rate values.

I've had to run several trials until the engraving came out successfully. Now that that's done, future projects will be made much easier.

Step 4: Final Touch

We'll sand the piece to give it the finishing touch and then we apply some oil, which is a mixture of tung, lineseed, and carnauba wax. If there is interest in the Oil-Varnish you chan check this link.