Butterfly

I had a friend apply her much-more-artistic skills in decorating one of the models, and this is what she came up with.

Goes to show what someone with talent can do!

Jeanené is an artist and does facepainting for markets among her other creative outlets. She can be contacted via email at nanni.com.au@gmail.com or on 045 206 1416.

Photos by Kara Rasmanis

Butterfly plans from MakeCNC.com

A Snake in the Grass

Careful where you walk……

Photo by Kara Rasmanis.  Pattern from makecnc.com, cut on a Torque 9060 CNC using 1/16″ router bit from toolstoday.com

Episode 118 Lancaster cut video

A quick video of the Lancaster Bomber being cut out.  I don’t want to think how long it took this video to actually get done – so many delays, so few windows of opportunity to work on it!  I decided to cut my losses and just put together what I had, rather than stress too much about really refining it.

Plans from MakeCNC.com

Uses the 45705 V-Groove 60º x 1/2″ Dia. x 1/4″ Shank Router Bit and the 46200 Solid Carbide Spiral Plunge 1/8″ Dia x 1/2″ Cut Height x 1/4″ ShankDown-Cut, both from Toolstoday.com

For better or worse, here ’tis.

Sucking in the sides

Back to the vacuum table for a sec.  I’ve been cutting out a bunch of designs on the CNC, for a school fete in October – while the machine sits idle during the week, there is no reason for it to do the same on weekends.

The vacuum table makes a huge difference – designs can be cut out without tabs, which saves a phenomenal amount of effort.  Just the time saved between removing a sheet and securing down the next is enough to be significant.

I happened to glance over at the vac this evening, and more specifically to the Clearvue cyclone-like separator (I have the older version of the mini, where they had departed from a traditional cyclone design).  The collection bin on the separator had almost completely collapsed from the vacuum that was being generated.  Lucky it hadn’t caused the lid to spring a leak, otherwise I would have lost what was being cut, and probably the cutter as well.

It makes very evident that this is generating a pretty significant vacuum, and therefore there will not be a great deal of airflow.  Problem with that is the vacuum cleaner itself.  I expect it relies on the airflow for cooling, and without it, I’m probably slowly cooking the bearings.

While the bearings can survive some heat soak, they will be mounted in plastic, and that will not be enjoying the temperature at all.  When that fails, releasing the bearings and therefore the shaft of the motor, the failure will be catastrophic.  Something that is still on my mind.

Just as an aside, after testing out the new dust extractor yesterday, cleaning up around the CNC, I kept using it today after each job, and was easily able to keep the whole work area satisfyingly clean.  This is despite having had to temporarily reduce the 8″ opening to a measly 4″ (in hindsight I should have checked what the inlet was on the unit – I need to get a multi-inlet, or drive a whopping great cyclone unit with the thing).

Thought I would be alright – drop down to Bunnies and get some plumbing fittings to carry me over.  Except they don’t have fittings that run to 200mm!  Let alone tubing.

Based on cross section area of the inlet, I can connect 4x 4″ inlets simultaneously, as the cross section area of 4x 4″ is the same as 1x 8″.  Anything less than that is restricting the extractor’s performance.  Either way, I have some thinking to do to maximise the dust draw from around the workshop.  And where the extractor will permanently reside.

Addendum:

Had a thought, and took another look at the Oneida Super Dust Deputy.  Interesting – the version available in Oz is steel, but in the US there is also a couple of statically conductive resin versions.  One that is the equivalent of the steel version is a whole $US170.   Even if the libs go and dump us with paying GST on overseas purchases, $US170 equals $A267 at the current exchange rate.  There is an XL version, with 6″ inlets and outlets.  That is interesting, but as it is not available here, a bit academic.

The steel Super Dust Deputy has one problem for me (other than being $A500), it is only for 350-850 cfm.  I can now generate 2900cfm!  Hmm – wonder what a home-made Thein could handle?

Update 2 – fixed up my maths – the Sherwood has an 8″ inlet, not 6″!

SSYTC082 Australian Animals Series

(A slight delay in the SundayCNC post!)

The Australian Animal series, from MakeCNC.com (scroll down a bit to the Australian Animals)

A really nice set of designs, with some real standout patterns.  By far and away, the Sulphur Crested Cockatoo is the most impressive, at least in my opinion.  However, it was the Echidna that I had to make a second time, because the first was ‘requisitioned’ by one of my work colleagues, as being “too cute”.

I really like the delicate magpie, and the facial (and mouth) detail of the Tasmanian Devil.  But I’m sure everyone will have their own favourites.

I would say these are more advanced patterns, as they take a bit more effort to assemble, but slowly and surely each can be bought together.  I occasionally shaved some pieces down just a little to loosen the fit, as I was gluing them, rather than leaving the models so they could be disassembled at a later stage.

Routed on the Torque CNC 9060, using the 1/16″ straight, 2 flute 45190 cutter from Toolstoday.com, running at around 40mm/sec, and 12000RPM.  Each cut from 3mm MDF, with most being able to fit either 2, sometimes 3 to a 900×600 sheet.  Except for the Cockatoo – that took pretty much an entire sheet on its own.  Of course, there is no reason why you cannot go bigger if you choose – cutting from 6mm, 12mm (or thicker) MDF.  And you don’t actually need a CNC to make use of the patterns.  A laser and/or router are all very well, but you are not limited to computer controlled machinery.  Print out the designs and stick them on stock timber, and you could cut them out with a scrollsaw or bandsaw.

The animals in the series are:

Sulphur Crested Cockatoo
Magpie
Kookaburra
Emu
Echidna
Bilby
Frilled Neck Lizard
Salt Water Crocodile
Dingo
Wallaby
Wombat
Kangaroo with Joey
Tasmanian Devil
Koala Walking
Koala in Tree
Platypus

A fun series, with some real standout designs.

CNC Sunday

I had an idea that perhaps I should consider limiting my posts about working with the CNC to one day a week.  But I doubt that is a resolution I’ll stick to for longer than 5 minutes!

I spent the day carving out a bunch of nested designs from MakeCNC.com, on their Australian Animal series.  I’ve put together one so far (a Bilby), and have cut out the cockatoo, kangaroo, croc, frilled neck lizard, and a bunch of others- about 6 to go of the 16 in total.  I’ll post more about them (including pics) when I have them together in the zoo.

In the meantime, I finished the spitfire for my daughter’s school.  This was also cut out of 12mm MDF (as was the pteradactyl), and has a wing span of about 1.4m

The last is shot with a bottle, to give a bit of a sense of scale.  Solid thing!  I engraved the wings before they were cut out using a v bit.  Rather cool all told (found here)- almost tempted to make another to the same size to hang in the shed (and have it painted up).

Speaking of painting things up, that is what my daughter decided to do today.  So with a bunch of acrylic paints, she first undercoated, then painted a couple of the models I made for her yesterday.  The came up really well!  Really adds an extra dimension to the models.

Fun day, lots of sawdust! (After all, that is what it is all about).

 

All creatures great and small

After completing my set of anatomically correct dinosaurs from MakeCNC, (the other three are in my office already), I then decided to make a pteradactyl as large as I can fit on my machine.  Cut from 12mm thick MDF, it has a full wingspan of 3.3m, and physically measures 2m tip to tip, and 1.2m long.  Despite being skeletal, it is realtively heavy!

It is destined for my daughter’s science class, to hang up in the classroom.

It really seemed like bones as we put it together.

It would be cool to do one of the anatomically correct ones to the same scale!  I really like the one that has its tail up in the air, which is the velociraptor.  Be awesome to have one of those life sized.  (That isn’t unrealistic, as they are relatively small as we saw in Jurassic Park).  Might scare the bejesus out of any unwarranted visitors in the middle of the night.  The plans only come with 3mm, so I’d have to accurately scale it to suit the 12mm thick material – job for another day.

Back to the large pterodactyl, (called a Flugsaurier Archosaurier on the MakeCNC website, which is German for Pteranodon, a type of pterodactyl).  It took 3 sheets of 12mm x 900×600 MDF, which is not too bad, considering the size!  It was cut with the Amana Tool 3/8″ solid carbide compression bit 46172 from Toolstoday.com I still ran it at 40mm/sec, but with a 3.25mm DOC.  Tabs were 10mmx10mm (still 3D, which made them easier to cut by hitting them with a chisel) to hold the pieces in place during the cut.

What to do next……decisions, decisions.

AWR

Been waiting for this one to come out – the latest edition of Australian Wood Review.  Has my first of a series of articles on CNC machining for small-scaled use.  This one is a 2 page spread as an introduction to the topic.

So this is the second magazine (this one, and ManSpace) that is on shelves currently with an article of mine.  And by Monday, the third will be out – the latest edition of The Shed.

Anatomically correct dinosaurs

I’m still enjoying (a bit too much) doing nesting operations on the Torque CNC.  These latest ones are from MakeCNC‘s anatomically correct range of plans – there are 8 in total (so I still have a few to make).

Initially making them out of 3mm MDF before trying anything more substantial.  I did try to make the Dimetrodon out of aluminium, but I didn’t fully adjust for material movement, and when one of the very long pieces of waste between the back spines moved to the wrong side of the router bit, well, let’s just say the router bit got suddenly much shorter. Me making better choices of tab placement, size and number would have made all the difference.

Even so, these look awesome in MDF (especially with the added quality of Kara Rasmanis’ photos). (Click through for a larger version)

Pterodactyl

Dimetrodon

Spinosaurus

These take a bit longer to cut out – a lot more edge distance, and going slower to avoid bit breakage (still managed to do that to one of the bits before getting the speed right).  The bit I used is the 1/16″ straight, 2 flute cutter from Toolstoday.com. 45190.  This gave a fine degree of detail.  I am interested in the 3/32″ bits for a bit more substance when that level of detail is not needed, but still having a bit under 3mm diameter.

For those who are interested, there is an interesting link here describing pterodactyls, what they were (and weren’t), including that like the brontosaurus, they are actually a number of genera that have all been called pterodactyls, rather than it referring to an individual genera.

I need to change the name of my office to Jurrasic Park – it would be more appropriate!

Episode 115 Here be Dragons CNC

Design from MakeCNC.com