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.

Friday 29 August 2014

The Massacre continues.......

The heads on our 2 Counterspy guys progressed in the same way as the rest of the body part. Using the vector outlines that Aspire generates, gives me the profile for the second layer.
 Those second profiles get cut out, and glued on, then machined after the first layer. This lets the cutter in our Techno cut past the glue seam, leaving virtually no cleanup on a layered part. However, if I have a chunk of material that fits the bill without running a profile cut of the second layer, I'll save the extra step where I can for time :)

All in all, smart model slicing, and the cnc milling past the glue seams creates a pretty nice model in the end!
 It wasn't long in the end, before we started piling up body parts in the shop! I can tell you, it can be a bit overwhelming with all the pieces lying around, knowing you have to clean and assemble every single piece!
After the outside surfaces had been taped together, and the joints between all the left and right halves had been cleaned up, it was time to address the frame inside the spyguy!. I decided early on, that the track for the frame was probably easier to locate after the parts were made, instead off including them in the computer model. Once I had the tracks locations determined, I used a small hand router to mill out the pocket the framework would sit into.
The various angles were a bit tricky to cut from the 1" steel tubing, so it was a bit slower than I would have liked, but in the end, it always gets done!
 8)
JWO












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2 comments:

  1. Doug Haffner29 August 2014 at 07:39

    Oh the things that couch has probably seen...or will see when I finally visit.

    ReplyDelete
  2. jamie oxenham30 August 2014 at 12:27

    I'll have to steam clean it before you can sleep on it! HA HA.
    When you gonna visit anyway?

    ReplyDelete

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