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.

Wednesday, 26 March 2014

Styrofoam Sharks, and Shop Safety!

Before I post about the Ripleys Hockey Shark build, I thought I would post a short video on Shop Safety. Normally I don't post random things from the internet, but this video is somewhat related to what we do, and the 'Pro Safety Tips' never go out of date.

Before you watch the video, it is important to note that they asked a kid to teach his brother about shop safety, adults acted the story, and they overdubbed the kids voices back on.

So here's a little humor for your day:
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We had a last minute emergency Monday night! The art director for the Christmas Horror Story called Monday evening, around 10pm, asking if we could fabricate one more rigid crosier for Tuesday midday. So Jody and I headed back to the shop to cast and paint one up. We didn't get home again until 2 am, but at least we got to sleep in a little before delivering it to the City. I do believe it was shooting that evening!
 
It really became a matter of waiting for our Techno cnc to finish the parts, then glue them up. This left me with the time between pieces, to clean up the seams as I went.
Because this whole thing will get around 3/16" of urethane hardcoat, a-lot of the detail was simplified, like the laces on the skates. I purposefully left out the bow, that the laces would be tied into, for just this reason.
On some of the layers I made the decision to just machine one side. If the transition wasn't complicated, it was faster to quickly shape it with 80 grit sandpaper, than to flip the foam sheet on the cnc, and machine the back side.

We should have it all cut and ready to send to hardcoat by end of day tomorrow! Providing there's no late night crosier developments in our future!
 
And remember, always wear gloves when you do softly tips with the hammer!

8)
JWO

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