As I have spent lots of time this semester working on a rocket engine with Rice Eclipse, I thought it only appropriate to make a rocket ship for this project! First, I found a rocket ship from the Noun Project:
I chose this rocket ship in particular because it had no detached or separated parts, making the file modification and routing much more straightforward. With this .svg file, I imported it into easel (just a quick shoutout to easel for being able to run on any browser, aka on my mac, making my life much easier since I was able to make the file in free time at home, without having to be at the OEDK or trying to use the remote desktop virtual machine thing that is quite slow).
With easel, I was able to make copies of the rocket ship .svg file and make modifications so I could adjust the height of different parts of the piece. The original .svg is the light grey outline seen highlighted in the picture below. The pocket of this path was then set to cut to a depth of 0.05″.
The file was then copied and the points on the path were deleted to just have the smoke outline. This involved getting rid of some extra points so that the smoke would fill in, rather than being the thick outline as seen in the original image. This piece of the cut was aligned with the first one and then set to cut to a depth of 0.1″ as seen in the picture below. 
The final cut-out of these two cuts can be seen in Easel below.
I then created a duplicate of this workspace. On the new workspace, I edited the rocket ship path points to just be the very outline of the rocket ship. I then set this path to cut on the outside, at a depth of 0.775″ so that it would cut all the way through the 0.75″ block of wood. I also set it to use tabs, the important of which I realized soon after, which I will get to in a little while. This path can be seen below in the picture:
The simulated cut is shown below as well: 
I originally planned now having both of theses workspaces done in one cut. The easel file pictures can be seen here:
However I realized that with the sizing of my rocket ship, the detailed lines from the first cut required a 1/16″ bit. And that 1/16″ bit was not going to be long enough to cut all the way through the piece of wood for the outline cut. This meant that I needed a 1/8″ bit for the outline. The easiest way to utilize these two different bits was to just create two different cuts. Each cut was about 8 minutes long, so totally 16 minutes of cutting, with about 10 additional minutes of set-up per piece.
After finalizing the file modification and gcode, I was ready to cut! Here is my first attempt at cutting:
It worked perfectly! However, I realized that the thickness were way too deep for the aesthetic that I was going for (0.25″ for the smoke and 0.1″ for the rocket outline). With that, I changed the thicknesses to the numbers that I mentioned above.
My next attempt was flawless, with both the cuts working perfectly. Here is it after the first cut:
and after the final cut, a beautiful little rocket ship!!!
However, on the final cut, I noticed some little tabs formed. At this point, I didn’t know what these were or why they were on part so I proceeded to delete them for the next cut. Oh boy I didn’t realize how much of a mistake that was!!! Here we have the rocket ship without its nose cone which got cut through accidentally when the piece became disconnected during its final cut – oops! Luckily, I was able to stop the machine before it caused too much damage but the piece was still left unusable. 
I then proceeded to put the tabs back on since I now realized there purpose – to secure the part during the final cuts! I made my second rocket ship without any issues.
It was now time for post-processing! I began this process by sanding with 120 grit and 400 grit sand paper. I sanded the sides as well as the crevices throughout the part to get rid of any sign of the drill bit that was used to create it. Together, I was able to get a smooth finish that was ready for paint.
Who knew that painting was going tot prove so difficult and frustrating – not me! I should have remembered the lessons learned from my diamond project which included the importance of patience and that less is often more. Anyway, I attempted to paint many times, struggling with more spray paint and acrylic and masking tape. If I had thought it through more, I should have made some vinyl stickers to use as stencils for painting but oh well. I also should have been more patient to let layers dry, and should have been more careful with applying spray paint lightly, but again oh well, nothing I can do about it now. Here are some pictures from those traumatizing struggles (I will probably avoid painting detailed things at the OEDK for a little while):
After numerous layers of paint, with no glimpse of success, I decided it was time to change my approach. I didn’t see a clear way to re-use the mess I had made on those poor rockets, so I started from scratch and recut some new rocket ships. These I was able to cut without any issues.
After sanding those, I decided to go with stain this time. It would give the rocket ships a nice clean look, rather than the mess of paint. Additionally, in my minimal experience with stain, I have found it much easier to apply successfully when compared to paint. So here are my rocket ships with stain (I absolutely love the look):
After the stain, I applied two coats of a clear polyurethane gloss with light sanding in between coats, to finish up the rocket ships with a nice smooth finish.
Now for a quick cost breakdown:
- Labor: 5 hr * $15 / hr (my wage from this summer) = $75
- ~ 1 hr on Easel
- ~ 2 hr on CNC router (~25 minutes per piece)
- ~ 2 hr on post-processing
- CNC Router usage: 2 hr * $30 / hr (from Quora user) = $60
- Easel usage: FREE
- Noun Project files: FREE
- Wood, 2′ x 4′ x 0.75″ Birchwood plywood: $41.30 (from Home Depot)
- Sand paper: $6 (variety pack of sand paper from amazon)
- Paints (not used in the final product)
- Wood Stain: $7 (Home Depot)
- Polyurethane gloss: $10 (Home Depot)
Total: $212.30
Total w/o labor: $137.30
Total w/o labor & machining costs: $77.30
Yes, this is a lot for only two pieces. But these supplie, could be used to make countless more rocket ships, making each one more and more affordable anad reasonably priced.
