When I lent my services to a collegue who was working on a film about 12 years ago, I was introduced to the world of cnc. I remember watching this huge machining centre milling out a slab of mdf and turning it into a fantastic set of gears. I knew that it would have taken me hours to achieve the same thing with traditional power tools. I decided then that I would invest in a cnc router for my own business Oxenham Design. At that time I could turn on a computer, but even to check email seemed like a crazy set of operations. I persevered and learned every piece of relevant software I could get my hands on. I am now fortunate enough to be using Vectric's ASPIRE software, and Techno cnc routers, which has helped us to create some amazing projects, both in part, or in full. I thought that this blog would be a great place to share "behind the scenes" adventures with the software, materials and equipment we use, as well as the projects we build.

Thursday 6 August 2015

I think I need a cnc sander :(

The soccer ball and water splash came together pretty easily. I did have to scab on a couple of pieces to the large water splash. It wasn't worth 3d machining the little slivers that formed the last portion of the curve, as it was way faster just to shape them with a file!
Every glued section of HDU got either a welded steel tube frame glued in, or a long straight piece for durability. I didn't have our Techno cnc pocket any of these, I just did them with a plunge router by hand. Largely cause I couldn't fully wrap my head around all the slots lining up in the computer. Once the pieces were all sectioned apart.
 I never got a picture of the main steel frame that went inside, but it was plenty durable! So the whole sign will mount to the posts via a 10 X 10 X 1/2" steel plate! Pretty heavy duty!

Jody did most of the sanding on all the pieces, while I hummed back and forth between sanding, and running the router. Believe it or not, I have actually sanded the finger prints off my right 2 fingers. Sounds funny, cause it is, but man, a hot coffee in the morning really makes them hurt! Jody's nails are all sanded funny too. They kind of all point off to the right now! Girls..........
But, sanding aside, it's coming along gangbusters!
And we just kept moving forward with the laminating of all the layers! Lots and lots of urethane glue was used, as well as a few hundred screws! We have done a whole bunch of monument signs for other shops out of HDU, so awhile ago, I cut about 200 HDU tapered plugs. These get glued and hammered in over all the screws. Then they get quickly sanded off, and you would never know they were there. HDU can be a bit of a pain with the glue. The HDU sands way faster than the glue, so you have to be really careful not to cup the material on each side of the glue join. But these plugs make hole filling a breeze!
And by the end of day 3, the front of the sign was complete!
We didn't forget about the back of it the either! The 1" HDU became a low relief version of the leaves on the front of the sign. These were a mirror copy, so they would line up around the edges. I wanted the back to look like the text was sitting in the bushes, I think it worked out pretty good!
8)
JWO









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1 comment:

  1. Spotting the obvious...7 August 2015 at 07:00

    Wow. I don't know what's more amazing, the way the sign is coming together of the way you make it look so easy... Can't wait to see it all finished up.

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