How do they do that? Egg & Dart

[rcnewcomb]

I was wandering through Lowes today and looked at some boards they had with an egg-and-dart pattern. I was trying to determine how they were able to do it so inexpensively. Upon close examination it looks at though these boards are stamped under pressure rather than carved with a machine. The same appeared to be true on some onlays they had -- wide grooves were never deep, deep grooves were never wide.

Am I correct or do they have some other way to crank out repeating patterns that are significantly faster that what I can do on the Shopbot?

[beacon14]

You are correct it's done with a high pressure, high-temperature roller - it's always a repeating pattern as the rollers are only so large.

[lto]

It's done on a moulding embosser, as David described. If you saw it at Lowes it was likely a little less than the best quality embossing possible, they pay rice even when buying domestically.

Embossing can achieve a high degree of detail along with the benefit of little or no sanding needed. It works best on woods with a uniform, fairly high-density. The embossing in the link below is done on a press rather than a roller.

http://www.barevillewoodcraft.com/wood_embossing.html