The third project in this class was relatively simple. We were tasked with carving out a “noun” from a block of wood. My noun in question was a simple Halloween design taken from thenounproject 

“Halloween”

by P Thanga Vignesh

However, fearing that the small floating dots would require a small bit and result in a very long carving time, I decided to get rid of them in adobe illustrator.

 

I then downloaded this file as a SVG file and uploaded it to Easel.

From here I indicated the size of the wood I was using (roughly 90 mm x 125mm x 18 mm), scaled and positioned my design on the virtual block of wood, and selected the bit size along with the depth.

Then I lined up my block in the Carvey and made sure it was secure using the clamps. I also picked out and attached a 1/16″ bit. I then made sure to check all of steps that Easel took me through and started carving.

My first cut was fine, however, I realized that I could use up more of the wood and decided to scale up my design. I then repeated all the steps to carve out the next piece.

The result was nice, although somewhat rough. I decided to sand down the surface and was able to remove the rough edges.

I then repeated the steps to produce a replica.

Overall, a pretty simple and fun project.

Cost Analysis:

Setting up the file = 15 m total

Carving = 11m for each piece –>  22m total

Sanding = 15m total

Total time = 52  m

$10 per hour = $8.67

The cost of wood:

a .75 inch thick piece of wood that is 12″ x 30″ costs around $14 (360 inches ^2)

the area I used was about 3 x ( 5″ x 3.5″) = 52.5 inches ^2

So around 14.5% of $14 = ~ $2.03 for the cost of wood.