This is the last blog that I will be doing on my own! Here is what I worked on for this project:
Final pieces – Flower 1, 2 and 0 respectively
I made CNC sunflowers 🙂
Process
- The first thing that I did was look for a sunflower file in the Noun Project that I liked. I found this file [1]:
Noun Project file
- Then, I opened it on Adobe Illustrator and modified it to have a few more details by adding some rings in the middle. I liked this picture so I used it as a reference:
Sunflower picture [2]
- This is how my file turned out:
Noun Project file modified using Adobe Illustrator
- This is how my file turned out:
- I then opened Carbide Create and followed the steps. Some specifics:
- I measured the dimensions of the wood and added them to the job setup
- Length: 6.0525 in
- Width: 3.0402 in
- Thickness, measured three times and chose the second one since it was still close to the low one but not so low: 0.7005, 0.701, 0.7035 in
- I scaled the sunflower that I had added and added a circular contour
- I modified further: eg. grouping things, aligning, etc.
- I measured the dimensions of the wood and added them to the job setup
- However, I was told that my file had too many details and that I would have to change the tools or simplify the file. With what I had in mind for post processing, the small engraved details would be irrelevant and might not help and I also did not have any experience with the machine, so I decided to make it a bit simpler. I can’t recall the steps that I followed for modifying it exactly, since I first tried to keep some petals, etc., but in the end, I decided to remove the inside petal outlines and keep the outside outline of the flower for example.
- I believe this is the final toolpath outline:
Outline with toolpaths from Carbide Create
- I chose 0.18 in for the flower outline pocket, 0.07 in for the pocket for more outside circle within the flower, and 0.09 in for the more inside circle pocket. The circular contour surrounding the flower was set to contour cut.
- And this should be the preview for the cut:
Preview in Carbide Create
- I believe this is the final toolpath outline:
- Once my file was ready and finalized, I then saved the gcode and opened Carbide Motion.
- Following the instructions in the manual, I tapes the piece of wood, homed the machine, set the zero, changed the tool bit to the one selected (these were out of their box, so I had to measure with a caliper and visually inspect them to make sure it was the right one), etc.
- I then started printing at the Nomad3 and it seems that it took about 18 minutes:
Nomad3 cutting the piece
- However, after finishing the piece, I was not convinced by the end result (will refer to it as Flower 0); the inside engravings were almost the same, the flower could be made a bit bigger, etc. . I decided to further modify the files, and then print it again.
- Some changes include scaling up the flower and changing the circles inside the flower. I kept the pocket for the flower outline at 0.18 in, but removed the pocket of the outer circle within the flower and made the smaller circle pocket still be 0.07 in. I again cannot recall the exact steps, because there were many changes, but I believe that I had to bring one of the inside circles back from one of the original files because of how I saved the previous file for the flower…
- I remeasured the two new pieces of wood:
- The first one was 6.48 in length, 3.38 in width ad 0.71, 0.71, 0.72 in thickness, from which I chose 0.71 in.
- The second piece of wood already had a cut in it, so I measured the width up until this point just in case. I was not sure how this would work or if taping it would be fie, but it did! The dimensions were 3.65 in length, 3.40 in width, and 0.70, 0.69, 0.69 in thickness, from which I chose 0.69 in.
- After everything was done and I had the new g-code, I printed the first of the two flowers (took about 17 min) (Flower 1):
About to cut the flower
Nomad3 making the pockets of Flower 1
Nomad3 cutting the contour of Flower 1
Finished Flower 1 (actually cut 180 degrees of what the image shows)
Finished Flower 0 (from above) vs. Flower 1
- Then, I printed the second one on the other piece of wood (Flower 2):
Cutting Flower 2 with Nomad3
Flower 1 (darker wood) and Flower 2 (lighter wood)
- After CNC cutting the wood, this is how the flowers looked:
- Flower 1 looked like this before this process:
Flower 1 before post-processing
- Flower 2 was hard to remove from the stock wood and looked like this:
Flower 2 before post-processing
- Flower 1 looked like this before this process:
- I then went on to post process the pieces:
- I used the belt sander to remove some small pieces left from the tabs
- I then clamped and sanded the bottom part of the pieces with the circular sander. This was particularly useful to smoother the sides after some pieces of wood had to be removed from flower 2.
- I also used sanding paper (150, 220, 320 (I believe that’s it)) to keep sanding, make everything more smooth, and also sand the small details from the inside and petal outline. I used a couple of utensils to try to remove the small splinters between the petals too.
- This was the end result (I also post-processed Flower 0, because, why not):
The three flowers, post-processed
- After post-processing, I went on to the finishing process:
- First I applied teak oil on the areas outside of the flower and dark walnut danish oil on the inside seed region. I wanted to use Flower 0 for testing (the danish oil applied on the outside) but I decided later on to keep that flower too.
Flowers after adding the teak and danish oil
- In any case, I was not convinced by the brown from the danish oil. So after the pieces dried, I added some brown and then brown and black dye to water and applied it to the parts were the danish had been previously added. This is probably not the order of steps that you should use, but I wanted to try to make it better .
- I then mixed epoxy with yellow dye and added it in the space of the petals for Flower 2. Raeedah also suggested using the liquid plastic casting mix from the chess pieces and so I tried this with yellow dye for Flower 1.
Flower 2 and 1 after adding the epoxy and liquid plastic mix respectively.
- I then stained the center of Flower 0 with red dyed water. After that, I mixed blue dye with epoxy (I think I added too much because it turned out very dark) and added it into the petal space of this flower. I, however, got the middle red part dirty so I tried to clean it with ethanol and it started mixing with the red dye. I liked it so I mixed a little more and left it like that.
Flowers after adding all the color (epoxy and liquid plastic mix) – left to dry
- After dry, I decided to mix some dyes in water and paint the outside. This was however a bit hard since the stain was not staying and also there were spots from the previous steps that would not get covered.
The blue and green stains circled in red were from previous steps (tried to remove them and then make them look fine with the rest…)
I thus decided to change the colors that I was going to use to try to make the pieces better. I also tried to clean some parts with ethanol before adding the new colored water. The results were not as good as I was looking for but I decided to leave them like this.
Flowers after painting them with the colored water. As it can be seen, the outline of Flower 1 (the one with the liquid plastic yellow fill) became less clear
- First I applied teak oil on the areas outside of the flower and dark walnut danish oil on the inside seed region. I wanted to use Flower 0 for testing (the danish oil applied on the outside) but I decided later on to keep that flower too.
- Then, I added a clear coat. I could only see matte for this, so I did not think much about it, but the shininess from the epoxy of course got removed, so I did not love the end result compared to how it was before, but it looks fine:
Added the clear coat and left to dry
- Originally I wasn’t planning on using the first flower (Flower 0), but I then liked it and decided to keep them all; I thought that they looked well together. If one two can be submitted, I guess it should then be Flowers 1 and 2, the sunflowers. However, I started with having Flower 1’s piece of wood as my favorite and I ended up liking the other ones more, even though it still look cool.
I just had to stop and take a picture: 
Cost
Labour time: about 430 min (estimated on many occasions)
- This work was a bit more work heavy than the last homework so I will say $14/hour
- Thus: 430 min * $14/60 min = $100.3333333
Raw materials:
- To simplify, I will be considering the wood, epoxy and as a raw material, but not any other finishing material used, since these were in small quantities and probably not very significant to the total cost.
- At first I was not considering anything other than the wood, but after I saw te cost for the liquid plastic when writing the ‘Charmander Chess Piece’ final blog with Raeedah, I realized that it was more expensive than expected, so I will add this as well as the epoxy based on estimates (likely overestimates)
- This was a good decision since the cost for the wood ended up being less than that for these
- At first I was not considering anything other than the wood, but after I saw te cost for the liquid plastic when writing the ‘Charmander Chess Piece’ final blog with Raeedah, I realized that it was more expensive than expected, so I will add this as well as the epoxy based on estimates (likely overestimates)
- Wood
- I am not sure what type of wood it was, but I am basing the cost on the 1×4 lumber source used for my ‘Building a Box!’ blog post [3]. The actual dimensions of this piece are 0.75in thickness and 3.5 in width. I will be using 1.5 times (about what my flowers actually used – the rest of the wood is not useful for another piece) the average from the two whole pieces that I used (since the measurement for the last one is not the actual width but a smaller measurement), which is 6.26625 in (0.5221875 ft). This means:
- 0.5221875 ft * $3.21/8ft = $0.2095277244
- Epoxy
- I probable used less than this, but I will be adding half a tube’s cost to the final cost
- Thus $5.58/2 = $2.79 [4].
- Liquid plastic (casting resin) – the one we used for the chess pieces final and thus, used the same link to calculate the cost
- I am not sure how much I used but it is probably less than the amount used for one chess piece (1 oz)
- Thus, I will use 1 oz (0.0625lb): $128/15.2lb*0.0625lb = $0.52631578947 [5]
Note: Based on previous experiences, I will not be considering electricity due to machine time since the cost does not tend to be as significant.
Thus, the total cost is: $100.3333333 + $0.2095277244 + $2.79 + $0.52631578947 = $103.8591768 or about $104.
References:
[1] https://thenounproject.com/icon/sunflower-5449342/
[2] https://guiadejardin.com/girasol-cuidados-y-consejos/
