This week our assignment was to find a 2-D icon and modify the file in easel and generate g-code. We then use the CNC Mill in the OEDK to make the icon on wax and then wood.

So we (Roy and I) started out by kind of randomly choosing a mug icon from the noun project and then we uploaded the file into easel and made a file that milled out the negative of the mug with a border:

Then we milled out 2 trial mugs on wax. The first time we kinda just learned all the settings on the CNC machine and also learned how to set the proper feedrate and the proper depth per pass. The first one came out pretty nicely but we just ended it super early because the estimated run time was 2 hours and 45 minutes.

On the second wax run we ran it all the way through to 3/8 of an inch and kinda learned that that was too deep and it wound up looking a little silly, so on out final we decided to only go to 1/4.

Then we came back in to do our wood version and we started out by prepping our wood piece which was actually super frustrating because we couldn’t use any saws in the wood shop due to the accident that happened in there a few days ago. So we grabbed a 2 by 4 and marked it out to be 3 by 3 and just started sawing it. And like 10 minutes in, it was finally all done! Then we sanded it all down and loaded it into the mill vice. We uploaded the g code and then we had some snafus with the mill (we broke a bit which was real bad!) and learned about some settings for the machine (ie you have to lower your feed rate to 30 for wood and you cant go as deep per pass as you can with wax). Then we let the CNC go and it was all cut in about 20 minutes:

We gave it a quick sanding and cleaned out all the sawdust and then we decided to paint it. We chose a baby blue color because the bottle was full so we could do multiple coats and it also seemed pretty. We did 2 coats and it looked pretty good:

But we wanted to put on another final coat, and then I went to check the paint but apparently in the 8 hours we were gone someone had used the entire bottle which was kinda impressive (just speed wise) but also kind of an inconvenience, so I just threw on a clear coat layer, which you can (almost) see in this pic (it was like midnight when I took this pic so lighting wasn’t ideal):

Then it was all done!