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, 27 November 2014

After 20 years, I'm not actually sure what we specialize in!

We certainly specialize in fabricating everything creative, but it can be pretty hard to elaborate on that statement. A while ago we made miniature construction workers, and last week we specialized in a gingerbread theme for a print advertising spot.
This week, we're building a 2 part fabrication for a one night event. One part is 5 custom table tops, and the other part is a chandelier type project made with 80 small acrylic hockey sticks! Sum that up in a quick conversation!

The acrylic chandelier we're building is a 3 tiered set-up. This will be lit from the inside, as well as have cascading LED's running down every-other hockey stick. Not shown in the render will be 3 logo's wrapped into a circle at the top. The whole assembly will hang from a truss system at the venue's ceiling. We've also had to shorten the overall height of the fixture, due to the headroom available. So the whole unit, logo's included will now only be 5.5 feet total.

The first order today was to cut into the 3/4" thick, 4 X 8 sheet of cast acrylic. This will become the handle portion of the chopped hockey sticks. It was pretty amazing to try and get that sheet onto the table saw! I'm guessing the weight was somewhere around 250 lbs. What a load of crap lifting that was!

I love cast acrylic! Easy to cut, high melting point, and just a plain joy to use. I got all the handle portions cut to size, then used a wobble dado to cut in where the blade will get glued on.
I also milled a rabbet on the other-side of the handle for the cascading LED light strip. Only half the sticks get these LED's, so I only ran these through the saw.
Should be cool!
8)
JWO


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