The CNC Project Mark III

The First Project cut With the Mark III CNC July 24, 2009

Just before baby arrived several weeks ago, I successfully cut my first real project. And it only took 2 tries!

This is a trivet, in other words a thing to put a hot pot on. The design is a hilbert curve, actually 4 hilbert curves connected to make the one continuous line. The wood is cherry. I really like cherry because of how well it sands to a glossy finish.

A couple things I learned. If you cut cherry too slowly, it burns your bit. I think I can still smell the smoke in the basement. Also if you have 2 programs, one to cut the curve and one to cut the outside perimeter, and in between you change the bit and accidentally move the alignment, it, looks like this:

This is also how it looks before you give it a quick sanding.

Vac Shoe Bristles July 12, 2009

Here is the vac shoe with the broom bristles glued in. Later I trimmed the bristles to length and didn’t bother with the outside row of bristles.

Here is how it is mounted

Cutting the Vac Shoe July 9, 2009

While new baby was settled today, I cut out the new version of the vac shoe with the new router installed.

Here is a short video to give you an idea of the cutting speed:

After drilling the holes for the brush bristles, the piece looks like this:

Once the holes are done, the perimeter is cut, then the piece is flipped over to cut the centre hole.

Here is the finished piece with vac attachment installed. It fits like a glove!

Here is the bottom side. The bristles get glued in as shown.

Compare the new piece (left) to first try (right). Notice the old piece has the groove for the vac attachment cut on the wrong side (whoops).