Cutting, engraving, sculpting
CNC Cutting & Routing in Brooklyn, NYC
CNC cutting and routing services in Brooklyn, NYC — three-axis work in wood, plastic, foam, and composites, from one-off prototypes to production runs.
CNC routing cuts a design from sheet material using a CAD file to guide the tool. Our machines move in three dimensions at once, so we’re not limited to flat outlines — we cut profiles, carve variable-depth relief, and sculpt fully three-dimensional forms.
What our CNC cutting services cover
Flat cutting. The workhorse. Any closed outline, cut clean through your material at any thickness we stock. Tools down to 1/16” diameter mean tight inside corners and fine detail.
Variable-depth carving and etching. Fluting, topographic relief, texture fields, signage. Different tool profiles give different cuts — V-bits for crisp lettering, ball-nose for smooth organic surfaces.
Paint-fill and two-tone. We can rout an etching and fill it with paint. Or, on two-tone material, routing away the top color exposes the layer beneath — no paint, no fill, no bleed.
3D sculpting. High-density urethane foam is our favorite here: architectural models, prop forms, mold plugs, oversized letterforms.
Plastics the laser won’t touch. PVC and polycarbonate can’t go near a CO2 laser — chlorine gas — but a router cuts them cleanly, and we do that work routinely. Same for HDPE and ABS.
Serving Brooklyn & NYC
The shop is in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Most of the work we cut goes to people within a few miles of it: designers, architects, prop houses, retail and gallery fabricators, set builders. Being local means you pick the work up yourself, with no crating or freight on a full sheet.
Pickup and delivery. Finished work is picked up at the shop by appointment once we’ve sent a ready notice. Delivery is available for an added fee, quoted per job on distance, vehicle, and time, and scheduled once the work is ready to travel. We don’t release anything before it’s finished.
Timing. Typical lead time is 5–7 business days for cutting, or 10+ for fabrication or finishing. The clock starts when the 50% deposit clears and the specs are confirmed, not when you approve the quote. Rush work is sometimes available at a 20% surcharge, agreed in writing before we start.
We also run laser cutting in the same building, so a job that needs both — routed substrate, laser-cut inlay — stays under one roof and one quote.
What we don’t cut
No metal. Not aluminum, not steel, not brass. The CO2 laser physically cannot cut or mark metal, and we don’t take metal routing work. If that’s your job, you want a machine shop or a waterjet house — we’d rather tell you in ten seconds than in a week.
No PVC or polycarbonate on the laser. Chlorine gas, non-negotiable. On the router, both are routine. It’s a machine limit, not a shop limit.
A word on tolerance
We can hold ±0.001” — in a stable material, on a part that wants to cooperate. Solid wood moves with the seasons and foam compresses. The honest answer is that the achievable number depends on your material, your geometry, and what you’re mating to. Tell us what the part has to fit and we’ll tell you what we can actually hold. We’d rather have that conversation before we cut than after.
Sending us a file
Rhino is our primary. Send a .3dm and we’ll work from it directly — no export, no
translation, nothing lost on the way in. Most of our clients model in Rhino and so do we.
Beyond that we take essentially anything:
- 2D vectors — DWG, DXF, AI, EPS, PDF, SVG
- 3D — 3DM (Rhino), STEP, IGES, STL, SKP, OBJ, SLDPRT, F3D
The only two we can’t work from are Blender and Cinema 4D. Export to STEP or STL and we’re fine.
Whatever you send: everything in one file, at 1:1 scale, closed paths, cut, engrave, pocket, and drill on separate layers, text converted to outlines. One drawing with layered operations quotes faster than a folder of separate files. Profile cutting needs vectors. Relief and 3D work needs a model — though simple pocketed depths can be called out in 2D with labeled layers.
A photo, a JPG, or a PSD isn’t something we can cut from. Send one as a reference if it helps explain the job, but if an image is all you have, we’ll need to redraw it as a vector first — that’s a design charge, billed upfront, before we quote the cut.
