Some CNC router projects.

[rodm]

:2tsup:

[John H]

The wife was stuck on what to get some of the interstate rellies for Christmas so I knocked up these simple key hangers. I used some floorboards from studley's reject timber sale.

Nice and quick to make in VCarve

[twistedfuse]

Well done, they look great. Also good find on the wood. Funny tho, cause it looks very similar to all the prezzies im giving this year. Its also very amazing when people see them how quickly the orders pile up. I really need to start taking and posting photos.

Daniel

[John H]

My first 3D part using the Aspire program. It took 4 attempts after I was having missing steps problems and a power blackout.

I used a 4mm end mill for a roughing cut that took 50 mins and a 3 mm ball mill to do the finishing cut which took 2 hours 10 minutes.

[WillyInBris]

My first 3D part using the Aspire program. It took 4 attempts after I was having missing steps problems and a power blackout.

I used a 4mm end mill for a roughing cut that took 50 mins and a 3 mm ball mill to do the finishing cut which took 2 hours 10 minutes.

Cool looks good :2tsup:, I am just hoping the dollar keeps rising (keep it clean Rod) so I get a xmas present and start doing the same getting real good at the trail version.

[rodm]

This one is 5mm clear perspex and my photography is hopeless so I am not doing justice to the piece. I have included the design drawing so you can see the detail better. I have combine texture and layering to give an iceberg look. After cutting out the shape I heat then bend the base under forming a stand. A lot quicker than making a wood base and then trying to fix the acrylic to it.

[GRS]

Hey Rod,

Great work there very effective and a simple way to have it's own base .

Here is a fluro perspex sign , reverse carved I have just completed. Done in 2 goes on my router , just a matter of repositioning the material in the bed.

[Greolt]

That looks really good Rod. Despite your poor photography. :D:D:D

I've never tried bending acrylic. Must give it a go.

Did you paint the etched area of lettering from the back? And if so were you able to wipe off the excess easily without scratching the clear.

Greg

[Greolt]

GRS that sign looks very professional.

The lettering stands out well in the coloured acrylic.

I can imagine it would look even better when mounted on a white or light coloured background.

Greg

[rodm]

Gary,
Nice size job and the fluro came up a treat. :2tsup:

Greg,
I have given up trying to get good photos - just point and click. :) On this one it makes it look like the engraving is too deep and it is merging the engraving but in real life it is like the Vectric graphic.
This one was for mum who is in her eighties and president of a garden club so how could I refuse. :)
The job was problematic from the start and this is the second version. The problem was me and I couldn't get my act together and when I finally got over all the mistakes I bent the tab the wrong way so it got binned. Second time around it was smooth sailing. Engraving is from the front as I had had enough issues with the first one so simplified it all.
No problem with scratching the perspex as I now use a silicone block (??) that they use for flushing joints. It is perfect as it has a sharp edge and is soft. Once used very little to clean up on the face. See photo.

Just for fun I have included some photos of my heater for bending. My first attempts with a heat gun worked but the bend was too large a radius and I had seen a lot better around. A search of the net provided a heap of videos from Tap Plastic about bending, joining, etc. Well worth a look.
So my solution was to make a very high tech bender using an old bar radiator. The trick is to contain the heat in the bend area so that you can keep the bend radius tight. I flipped the perspex over a couple of times while heating to make sure the middle got the heat without spreading the heat too far down the perspex. The wooden stop bolck was my fence - told you it was high tech. :rolleyes:
You need to get the table about 50mm from the bar otherwise it does not heat up quick enough. I used ceramic tiles as I thought they would be able to take the heat and they were in the shed. I put a couple of strip of ally square over the first set of tiles and then laid another set on top. The theory here was to keep the heat out of the top tiles to make sure the heat did not spread too far down the perspex. It sort of worked but probalby need insulation between the tiles ot make it better.
I am rambling on here so have a look at the photos as I peal off each layer and you will be able to work out how I did it. Do you think I should copywrite this? :D

[Ch4iS]

This one is 5mm clear perspex and my photography is hopeless so I am not doing justice to the piece. I have included the design drawing so you can see the detail better. I have combine texture and layering to give an iceberg look. After cutting out the shape I heat then bend the base under forming a stand. A lot quicker than making a wood base and then trying to fix the acrylic to it.

Have you tried going over the edges with a flame to melt the perspex, or were you looking for a rough finish?

Never tried it myself but aparently it works wuite good, just I think if done wrong you would have soot melted into the perspex??

[rodm]

Hi Chris,
I used a cloth buff and the polishing stick for the edges. I once tried a propone torch but blackened the perspex before it melted. The Tap videos say not to use propone. I was thinking of getting mapgas as hiring oxy bottles is a bit of overkill for what I do. In any case polishing on the buff works fine.
Acrylics are great to work with and you do not have to apply a finish like timber.

[rodm]

I have been bending a bit of acrylic lately for some jobs and my crude bender in the post above was past it's use by date. :)
The ceramic tiles got hot after the first bend and then it was heating too great an area to get tight bends.
So thinking cap on I made a new version and nothing flash but much improved on the jerry built version.
An ally angle frame and 6mm ally plate on top wrapped in four thicknesses of a fire proof blanket. Ally was all sourced from a recycle yard at $3.60 kg. A new bar radiator for the princely sum of $19 finished the set up.
Bent 6mm acrylic sheet no probelms at all.

[seafurymike]

I can't believe how you churn out projects.

you got some undershots from the side?

[rodm]

Hi Mike
Nothing special with this and excuse my workmanship as it got minimum effort.
Underside view with bracket removed for radiator. The radiator sits in a chamber to contain the heat. Side view shows that a bit better. Idea is to get the bar of the radiator as close as you can to the gap in the top and to keep the gap at the top about 6mm wide.
I should have made the gap adjustable and also fitted a fence so you can butt the perspex up to it but I didn't think it was worth the effort to make. Easy enough to stick a lump of timber on top as a guide.

When you heat the perspex it lifts up slightly and when it is ready to bend it settles flat again. Like an inbuilt gauge. Bending I just do in my hands and then hold it until it is cool enough to keep the bend. A lot of you would have done this sort of thing in school but nothing like this was done while I was at school.

[rodm]

Been quiet on here so I am going to bore you with a job I did this morning.
The sign is cut from aluminum checker plate and backed with a piece of tinted perspex.

It is for a farmers property so the stencil font and checker plate were deliberate design elements. The polished half circle reresents the sun and light coming through the text adds to this theme. Size is about 600 by 370mm

I might set this on a couple or three limestone blocks but it will loose the light effect. If I do I will have a surround so the plate looks insert. My sense of humour wants me to place it on a weathered post with fencing wire tangled around it. :)

Allan your the farmer on here - any thoughts for mounting? Old piece of cast iron off a machine?

[rodm]

Still thinking of a mounting but for now it is framed with some bar and stainless cap screws to hold it all together. It might end up just being twitched onto the front gate.

[seafurymike]

Nice job there Rod.

[Zoot]

Rod,

It is really a great looking sign, but whatever fixing you use, it has to be done so that you get the effect of the light through the letters.

Seeing that it is for a rural property, why not use the old post and rail fence concept. A (preferably old) fence post at each side with timber rails top and bottom, mortised through the posts. Two fixings at the bottom and one at the top onto the rails.

I have tried to show what I mean with the attached sketch.

Cheers,

Alan

[rodm]

Hi Alan,
I have been thinking of mountings for a couple of weeks and have really been stuck due to the semi circle top. Everything I sketched looked like a toomstone.
Your idea is perfect and the top rail squares it off so it doesn't have that look. :2tsup:
Thanks

[rodm]

I like a challenge so when I was asked to do a computer table mounted off the wall I came up with this idea. I had some 32mm MDF and the finished size is 2000 by 450mm. A carved edge strip took care of the raw edges and then by indexing on the machine three times I covered the 2 metres of design. I could have done it in two moves but due to the design spreading over the job it was much safer to break it into three parts.

Finish is 6 coats of sprayed on Mirrortone.

The design was done by my son in Aspire and the grey colouring is to match the wall it is to be fixed to. Note the acknowledgement engraved in the design.

It is his business name and he will be fitting a 6mm glass top to it on Tuesday so I will follow up with it fixed to the wall and the glass top in place.

[John H]

Nice one rod. So how did you the carving on the edges?

[rodm]

Thanks John,
Sorry I should have said something about that - I cheated and got some edging off the shelf at the big green wharehouse.

[John H]

LOL, Ya Cheat!!

I was thinking you must have done some sort of uber set-up alignment and part flip to get both side of the curve... or you snuck out and got a 5 axis machine :p

[Geoff Sims]

Really nice job Rod.

Cheers

[rodm]

John,
I am trying to feel shame. :D
The section was a pain to mitre and get the design matching across the corners as well as each end matching so I reckon I worked hard enough on that. :rolleyes:

Thanks Geoff,
This is part two of the design on my spoil board that you saw last week. I have to tell you my toes curled under each time I indexed the job. It turns out it is easier to index a job than what I thought it would be. I just slid the job through a measured amount then chopped the same amount off the material size of the drawing and moved the design accordingly. I had a days work and a few bucks invested in making the table top so I would not have been happy if I had mucked it up on the machine.

As a matter of interest the engraving "Design by Brett" is only 2mm high and I used one of those three flute carbide cutters.

[rodm]

Fixed to the wall and the glass top in place.
On reflection maybe black colouring in the engraving might have made it look better but it was done in grey to match the walls.

[twistedfuse]

either way it looks good. well done.

Daniel

[MadeInTheShed]

Hi Rod, you have some great work here.
Just built my first CNC machine and am looking for projects now! Have been searching for ideas on how to make my engravings stand out. What method do you use to paint your engravings?
I would like to carve something like the horse head that you show in post #46. Would you still have the files, and if so would you be willing to share them?
Jon

[rodm]

Hi Jon,
No sorry I don't have or can't find that job.
Trick to painting is sealing the job first. A quick coat of sanding sealer is good enough. Cut your job exposing the unsealed timber. I use a stippling (?) brush and apply a liberal coat of acrylic colour from one of those artist supplies. You can pick up a tube or bottle of paint for around $3.00 to $5.00 from a $2:00 shop or Bunnings. I then use a silicone block used for flushing plaster joints to get the excess off the face - see post 110. Wait for it to almost dry then use a lighly dampened cloth tightly wrapped around a timber block and rub it across the face.

[MadeInTheShed]

Thanks Rod. Can you give a little more info on the silicone block. I have tried a few hardware stores and they all give a blank stare and say "A silicone WHAT?"

Jon

PS my machine in its build stages can be seen here ......

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84251

[rodm]

The blocks are used for flushing gyprock and available from Heatley Sales.

[seafurymike]

Well, probably not as good as Rods machining but here is my 1st part from my new machine.

This will hand over the dunny as the current ventilation is a flyscreen shroud that looks ugly and lets lots of ventilation in (hot in summer and cold in winter)

[rodm]

No - better than my machining.
Love the design and if you are feeling generous I would like the dxf so I can use it for a small narrow hall table for the kids. A sheet of glass on top would make it an interesting piece of furniture.
Good to see you up and running. :2tsup:

[Greolt]

.................... here is my 1st part from my new machine.



Well done Mike. Good to see it happening. :)

Greg

[Ch4iS]

Looks great,

Perspex?

[Zoot]

I agree also ... looks great! Would also like a copy of the dxf file if you are feeling generous.

Cheers,

Alan

[seafurymike]

Thanks for the warm feedback. It was cut in 10mm MDF with a 4mm cutter. To get all the content(vectors) that I drew, I think a 2mm cutter would be better suited.

I want to play with making some D bits and seeing how they cut MDF. Has anyone ground their own by chance.

After having huge issues with my Y-axis stalling all the time (resolveed by re-wiring as Greg mentioned in another post) I was very happy with the finish of the cuts. My old machine left machine marks, this machine doesn't. Spending time and money on better material helps, plus youtube videos telling how to eliminate backlash with mach3.

I zipped up two versions. Those with Vectric S/W and those without.

In the Vectric version I had some errors which stated open vectors. Can anyone elaborate on this. Would it be the tool used causing the issue or just that the vectors were not closed correctly.

Edit: Sorry files were too big. You can get them from my optusnet home page

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~michael_prinzi/

/M

[rodm]

Hi Mike
Downloaded the file thanks.
It is the drawing which has open vectors. The reason it didn't stop it cutting is that there are copies of the same part on the drawing.
Try this
Edit then Select all open Vectors
You will see the open vectors as red dashed lines. In this case delete these as they are duplicates of what is underneath. This happens when you copy and paste bits around.
If they are not duplicates then use the chain command to join them up.
If it get's approval from the kids I will run it and post the result.

[seafurymike]

Cheers Rod,

I see what you mean. I did copy/paste a lot as you can see most of it consitutes mirror images around the centre point.

/M

[rodm]

Something a little different. This is a machine guard that I knocked up for a glass drilling machine. The collar fits over the nose of the drill and the perspex deflects the water away from the electrics on the drill - a costly repair was needed due to the lack of sufficient protection.
The collar was turned up on the lathe, then the slot milled and the perspex guard was cut on Morphy then bent to shape.

[Greolt]

A member of the Vectric forum posted an example of this. I was inspired to give it a go.

It was a good exercise for me. Makes you think. This one is my second try. 90mm cube.

Greg
.

[chrisb691]

Looks good Greg...but how on earth did you do it. :)

[rodm]

That is clever :2tsup:
You keep tempting us with the totary axis.
Do you just use Y and Z because I thinking of making a two axis machine with a rotary table. Morphy does not have enough Z axis travel for anything substancial so was thinking of a compact two axis and rotary axis - much like a lathe I suppose.

[Greolt]

No rotary axis involved with this one.

Important to start with a accurate and square cube.

Pic of the toolpath in Aspire.

Greg

EDIT: Added another pic to make it easier to visualise.

[rodm]

That is even more impressive - cutting six faces to get a sphere.

[seafurymike]

For a bit of fun i decided to try and cut the Eifel Tower and that I work for french company had some influence on the content.
I found this in one of Benny's old threads on the Zone.

I used some flakey 3mm ply and slapped it together quickly, but it made an impresssion on my desk.

[jb2060]

wonderful work guys,

Really clever stuff - the bar keeps getting lifted higher and higher.

cheers, jb

[Greolt]

I did this model in Aspire. Underlying shape with a two rail sweep.

Laid out some vectors for the fluting and had them "Project onto 3D model". Same with the vee-carved design.

You just have to know the circumference and get the designs to meet at the join.

Run the toolpaths through CNCWrapper and took them to the machine.

Greg

[rodm]

Hi Greg,
You make it look too easy. I'm sure one needs a little bit of practise to get to that level - the circumference is changing in your design.

[Greolt]

- the circumference is changing in your design.
Yes it is I suppose.

But you set a circumference when wrapping the code. So in effect you need to know what measurement will come to be 360 degrees.

CNCWrapper has a radius/diameter/circumference calculator which makes it easy.

Don't even need to reach for the pocket calculator and remember what Pi is.

Greg

[WillyInBris]

Y

CNCWrapper has a radius/diameter/circumference calculator which makes it easy.



Sure Greg Sure thats what they all say but damm that looks the goods love the box and ball as well :2tsup:

[Greolt]

Had a go at taking it one step further today. Along the lines of a table leg.

All done in the rotary including the top square section. Indexer mode.

Modelled in Aspire. 3Ds in the top are clip art.

Greg

[WillyInBris]

Had a go at taking it one step further today. Along the lines of a table leg.

All done in the rotary including the top square section. Indexer mode.

Modelled in Aspire. 3Ds in the top are clip art.

Greg


Lost for words mate :oo:

[stevejw]

Greg,
There is one thing this forum is never short of is inspiration. They are truely fabulous, as Willy says I am lost for words.:2tsup:

Cheers
Steve:U

[chrisb691]

Absolutely stunning.

[jb2060]

Fantastic work Greg

[rodm]

That's heirloom quality work Greg. :2tsup:

[GRS]

Brilliant stuff there Greg, well done mate :2tsup:

[Zoot]

Not fair!

Youv'e lifted the bar again and I hadn't even got close to its last setting!!!

Great work Greg,

Alan

[Greolt]

SWMBO wanted a candle base.

A bloke gave me a piece of thick ply. Laminated two together and carved this on the rotary axis.

It'll do for a her Christmas present. :U

Greg

[rodm]

Stunning Greg :2tsup:

[jb2060]

Very nice Greg... very tricky

[GRS]

Been wanting to replicate my leadlight front door, name of the old family farm, my grandfather had this made about 80 years ago and I had it refurbished 10 years ago.
My plan is to make a small replica door and give it to my folks.

The replica is reverse carved into Perspex and painted it is 204 X 160 mm

(Obviously the real thing photo was taken from inside the house looking out)

Cheers

Gary

[triden]

I may as well post a couple of my test cuts on my home made MDF machine.
It took a couple of goes to get a finished product but i think they turned out ok. You can imagine what the first ones looked like.
Cheers
Denis

[rodm]

Very effective - I like the fish on the left hand photo. :2tsup:

[GRS]

G'day all,

had been asked by my old man who loves his fishing to make a crab measure that has a side piece to place onto the carapice of the crab and then you dont have to struggle with tring to keep the thin end on the carapice. This makes it easier to measure the crab.

" GOT IM " is my dad's catch cry whenever he's got one

[rodm]

Hi Gary
A crab go, crab no go gauge :)
Nice work

Must be the day for cutting jobs. I've done a bit of a catch up before the weather got too hot for the shed as well. One of them was this brass compass. Nothing special and much like a sundail design without the pointer.
Sorry about the quality of the photo. I have had this trouble before - how do you take a photo of a shiny object?

[rodm]

Didn't like the donut shape so decided to add a centre. It is like a medallion and pocketed to 1mm depth. It is thicker by 2mm than the original plate and the arrow can be rotated to a direction of interest.

[GRS]

Hey Rod,

Very nice work. What feeds and speeds are you using for brass, I have tried some from bunnings and had to go micro shallow on the pass and quite slow. Was probably the wrong type of brass too.

Also is the centre piece different brass or just a photo trick ?

Chers

Gary

[rodm]

Hi Gary
I can't do good photos so a photo trick is beyond me. :D
Yeah they were from two different pieces so a slight variation in colour. The middle is twice the thickness of the out side donut.
Cut at 0.1mm per pass, feed 400 and plunge 50 but I cranked that up to around 600mm/min once it was running. Spindle speed around 3000 RPM - did it on the X3 mill and ran full flood coolant - mainly to wash the chips away.
Yeah brass like ally can be a bit fickle. I think the stuff from Bunnings is for trim and not intended to be machined. The brass I used was already polished and didn't have those drawn marks in the surface.

[seafurymike]

Here is my latest project for the list

[Greolt]

Wow that is pretty.

Is it for the front door?

How thick is it?

Greg

[Zoot]

Mike,

How did you do the paint fill ... after polishing or before?

Alan

[seafurymike]

Hey Greg, Zoot,

I ended up putting it on one of the front gate pillars. I'll take a shot and add it to the post.
The Brass is 2mm

I buffed the metal of any imperfection with a hard wheel and then a floppy wheel, using the compound made for each wheel. I added the black paint, which is car acrylic, the trick here is to make/thin the paint so it's like water. Fill it to the top and let it evaporate - don't expose the unt to sunlight to cure the paint (one of my mistakes).

I then hit is with #2 kitten cut & polish and then with Macquires polish.

[GRS]

An Essendon plaque for a friends mate all reverse carved perspex and painted then recessed into the veneered MDF

He might have chucked it out after last nights effort though :o

[rodm]

Nice work Gary but Essendon???
Could be worse could have been the Dockers :oo::D

[GRS]

Rod :~

[rodm]

He He :D
I knew that one would get a rise.

[GRS]

Spose I'm minced meat again this year and we haven't even played a game:doh:
Oh well at least your mob have the galloping lamp shade:o
he is a freak for sure:oo:

[rodm]

Nah lost interest in sport - when the players clean up their act I might take an interest.

[rodm]

For something a bit different I have done a couple of family seals for gifts.
Quite simple and very effective. Engrave in the end of a bit of brass rod in this case 25mm diam but it can be smaller. I pocketed a 25mm hole in a piece of scrap timber then pushed the brass rod in there and a couple of dabs of the glue stick held it in place. The advantage is you do not have to find the centre of the brass so long as you use the same zero reference for your engraving as you did for the pocket.

Get some sealing wax and I got mine from UK through ebay. Puddle some wax on the paper and push the brass seal into it and leave to set. Once set the brass lifts easily leaving very detailed impression. Allowing for my terrible photography you get the idea from the photos. The black in the wax is me letting the wick burn against the wax turning it black - I think it adds to it.

I have done a serrated edge by engraving every 2.5 degrees around the perimeter - sort of like they do on coins. The engraving is mirror image. I need to talk to a good woodturner to make me a couple of handles and then I will do a presentation box back on the machine.

[rodm]

We don't talk a lot about fixtures and jigs so I thoguht I would show what I described above to make it crystal cear. :rolleyes:

First photo is the pocket and second shows the brass plug in place. As I don't change the X zero, Y zero point all I have to do is zero the Z to the top of the plug. I know then that the plug is centred in the machine. I think that makes sense.

You can't take the Woodworker out of the metalworker. :)

[seafurymike]

Very nice work there Rod, I have thought of doing the exact same thing given i watch so much time team.

Do i assume the plug bottoms out and gives you a flat surace or do you clock it up with a dial ind?


Can't wait to see the handles and then the complete set project.

/M

[rodm]

Hi Mike,
Quick and simple this end - it bottoms out on a piece of perspex. The perspex acts as a spoil board to save the mill table.
A mate is a master woodturner so better he do it then he won't have to criticise my attempt. :) I have threaded it 6mm so one of those knock down fittings will screw into the end of the handle - shouldn't fall offf in a hurry.

[twistedfuse]

Awesome work rod (as usual),

They would look fantastic in some nice turned wenge or similar exotic wood as a handle.

I'll have try this one once i get the beast going.

[rodm]

Hi Daniel,
Easy project to do once I worked out how to mount it. I thought jarrah for the handle as it goes well with brass.
The box might be jarrah too although sheoak would look good.

[twistedfuse]

Your right Rod,

The Jarrah/Brass would look lovely, especially if you have some nice figured black spotted jarrah. Rippled/Velvet Sheoak would be lovely as it would highlight the figure rather than colour.

Looks great anyway. Can't wait to see more.

Daniel

[rodm]

This video is mainly aimed at people interested in what a CNC machine can do. I had a fairly long job to do so I amused myself by making a few videos of the job running - and it got me out of washing the car. :)
If you thought I was bad at still photos then be prepared for worse in this video. :-

YouTube- Morphy_Er25_small.wmv

[Greolt]

Well done.

Good video Rod. :2tsup:

Greg

[seafurymike]

You just had to step up to the plate and go one better. Really, very good work there Rod.

Q. How much do you take off per pass and what speed/feed? I tried to cut some MDF last night at 3 passes of 6mm at 600mm/min. Found the Y axis lost steps. I know that I have to replace my Y axis motor, but I would have thought it wouldn't cause it to stall at that speed.

/M

[rodm]

Thanks Greg - pretty basic stuff. I am trying to get some new builds going as it has been fairly quiet here of late.

Hi Mike,
Was 1mm pass and around 2.5m/min. I was using a long carbide cutter that has seen a fair bit of ally work so didn't want to push it. My spindle is only 800 watt as well.
The 6mm depth of cut would likely have casued the resistance to loose steps. MDF is dense despite it's soft appearance and as you know it is hard on cutters.

[seafurymike]

Your so right, atleast it was on a scrap piece to test the theory. I ended up running it at 600mm/min with 3mm passes. i expect 4 mm passes would be fine and ensuring I clear the sawdust, each subsequent pass would be okay too.

At the moment the job takes me 20 minutes and I believe the lady wants 35 units, which means a lot of cutting

[rodm]

At the moment the job takes me 20 minutes and I believe the lady wants 35 units, which means a lot of cutting


Hi Mike
That raises a good point there. I hope you are charging for such a large job – that is rhetoric and I don’t want an answer. You are talking two full days work with mounting the job and clean up.

I do a lot of freebees and it amuses me how one of a product becomes multiples of the same when it is offered free. Easy for them to request to make more but people forget that time, effort, cost and other priorities are affected. I enjoy giving and do not want to stop doing jobs for others so it is a balance and you have to be tactful which is something I haven’t mastered yet.

I think I offend some people the way I go about it so how do you control the freebees and not offend?

[Zoot]

Rod,
I always learn lots when you show off your work ... please keep it up! I took note of your pass depth and speed because I have not yet fully come to grips with speed and depth of cut for various materials. That's where I got myself into trouble before Christmas by cutting a sample in MDF and then cutting the final job in Blackbutt without changing my pass depth ... stalled the spindle, stuffed 2 Gecko boards!! All back working again thanks to Gecko.

I noted that the carbide bit that you used was quite long. Could I use something like that to cut out some 50mm thick shelf brackets or would I need to somehow give the bit some extra clearance because of the depth or just go slow and keep the dust away? Gee, a triple barrel question!

Cheers,

Alan

[rodm]

Hi Alan,
I am conservative with my feeds and speeds. Depth of cut I was sensitive about because of using a long and well used carbide cutter. I mainly judge it on sound to determine optimum cutting and adjust until I hear it on song. If you go to about 2 minutes 47 onwards for a little while you can hear it on song - a high pirtched wurr is as best I can describe it. Faster cutting than that it has a basier sound and slower than that you just hear the spindle and only see dust coming off the cutter. Notice the long curls coming off the cutter which is unusual but shows me it is on song. Normally I am looking for chips coming off.
I had set the feed rate in the gcode to 1500mm/min and increased it to around 2500 and as high as 3000mm/min in some bits. If we were to use a manual router we would adjust our feed rate without thinking taking in the sounds and feedback through the hands. I set a mid range feed rate and always adjust it looking at the swarf/sawdust and listening to the cutter. I know this is very untechnical but these days alternative is good so does that make me a CNC whisperer. :rolleyes:

Of course this is just my observation and logic and I could be totally wrong in which case I will forfiet my CNC Whisperer's hat. :D

Arrrh the old tripple barrel question.
I am not sure you can get a 1/4 inch bit that will cut to a depth of 50mm. I had a quick look around the usual suppliers and nothing close. The bit I am using cuts to 38mm or inch and a half. I agree an outside parallel cut to open up the cutting groove would help clear the sawdust and cool the bit.

I would tackle this job by doing the surface cutting on your CNC machine including the outline of the bracket then demount and go to the bandsaw and cut along the outline. If we could mount 1/2 inch shaft cutters in out Chinese spindles then a different story.

[seafurymike]

Rod,

This job is kind of free. My wife is a kindergarten teacher and they just erected a new pergola. They wanted to put the fret work on this unit, but it was going to cost them close to $400. The wife mentioned that I made ours and that I could probably do it for them. I have asked for the material cost to be re-reimbursed as a minimum.

You did however hit the nail on the head. I too give away a lot of free work and like you don't mind it to some extent. I have found that a one off is fine, but when lots are wanted I just advise them now that it takes a lot of time and costs a lot if I had to keep giving things away - now there is eceptions to this rule, especially for people who continually help me with other projects, which may come in the form of parts or advise. It is a very dark beast and difficult to tame.

/M

[GRS]

Hi All,

Me again . Just to show you some car badges I have done for a friend . Yes it is spelled Ain to reflect thier number plates. Also some reverse carved badges I ahve done, my personal fav is the "oh deere" done by my good self and my silly sense of humour.

Cheers

Gary

[rodm]

Nice work Gary
Is that John O'deer :D

[GRS]

The great thing about having CNC inthe shed is for making birthday gifts.
Heres a Carlton plaque I made for a mates birthday.
Logo inserted painted perspex and an aluminium badge inserted at the bottom.

Cheers

Gary