This week I started my learning adventures in CNC milling, and needless to say, like other projects, this was indeed a bit of a struggle. One of the biggest takeaways I had with the CNC mill was that if you can keep the same settings and bits you will get a consistent product, but small amounts of inconsistency can lead to big changes in the final product.

Picking a Design:

Going into this project I knew I wanted to CNC a pokeball because I saw some cool designs on Noun project, and so I decided to go with creating a Love Ball, shown below:

After modifying the design in illustrator to take away a few lines to make the design simpler for the CNC to route, the design worked beautifully on the mill.

CNC Milling:

When actually milling the design, I didn’t have too many difficulties. During the first pass I used a 1/8 in bit which I believed to be downcut bit, and when manually focusing the machine I didn’t have too many problems. The design took about 20 minutes to cut, and it went all the way though. I punched the tabs out with a hammer and flat head screwdriver, and got a relatively clean design. After I cut out my first design I had to leave for a while and by the time I came back, someone had swapped out the bits and when I went to go use the same bit as last time, I was unable to find it. Using a new bit but the same settings, the only thing that may have also been different were when I manually put in the z height, but as seen in the final products there were inconsistencies in the etching of one part of the design. I tried to correct this by manually sanding down the etch part, however it did not come out as I had expected it. Overall the process was not too difficult, but the change in bits showed me that the bit is very vital to the milling process.

Post Processing:

As stated before, the first thing I did to post process the pieces where to do a bit of sanding on them. The bits I used where both upcut bits, and so there was a lot of fraying on the wood once the mill was done, so the first thing I did was take care of these bits by sanding away the small pieces of wood. I also sanded down the sides and back of the piece to just give it a more finished look. After sanding the uneven etching on my second piece as even as possible, I decided to spray paint the majority of the piece with only the etched part being a barn red stain to get a different shade of red. Since I altered the design a little bit and we did not have all the colors needed for the original design, I took some creative liberties with the painting, as you can see below:

Cost Estimate:

Wood: $2

Spray Paint: $6

Barn Red Stain: $11

Time: 3 hours x $15

Total: $74