For this assignment, we had to use a CNC mill to carve out a noun from the noun project. First came the task of choosing the noun to mill. There are a lot of nouns out there so I needed some inspiration. Luckily, the universe was sending me a sign — this weekend was a particularly dog filled weekend (corgi study break at baker, arguably more dogs than people at Axelrad), so the choice was clear. PSA, there are way too many dog images on the noun project site. Anyways, I ended up choosing this one:
Named “Golden Retriever Dog” (awwww)
I downloaded the file as an SVG and then opened it up in Easel. First, I input the dimensions of my piece of wood ( I chose red oak – it looked nice and classy) so that I would be able to appropriately size the dog to fit the wood. For the cut itself, I chose “fill” instead of outline because the image was already made of lines that constructed an outline, so outlining these outlines just made the image look weird.
Outline Cut
Fill Cut
Next, I opened the file on the Carvey computer. I chose my bit to be a 1/16 downcut fishtail. As for the cut settings, I was going to go with the recommended, but Arturo had gone before me and warned that the recommended settings for him ended up being too fast. So, instead I changed the recommended feed rate from 40 in/min to 30, and the recommended plunge rate from 12in/min to 8. I kept the cut depth at 0.3.
One other thing I had to adjust for was the size of the corner clamp that held the piece of wood in place. With the original arrangement of my dog, its butt and tail were in the zone that was covered by the clamp. To fix this, I flipped the dog upside down and it fit perfectly.
Flipped to fit (clamp outline not shown in this image)
I started the cut and stopped it once in the middle to vacuum the saw dust. It only took 3 minutes (probably because I had a fairly shallow cut depth at 0.075 inches). Overall, the final cut came out pretty nice ( I forgot to take a picture though 🙁 )
In terms of post processing, I sanded all surfaces of the block, including the faces and edges. I also sanded the inside of the cut by folding a piece of sandpaper and inserting it into the grooves. Finally, I applied a finishing oil to bring out the natural characteristics of the wood. Here’s the final product:
In the future, I’d like to try out a stipple pattern or use the x-carve.
