For this project, I decided to carve two dogs out of wood.
1. INITIAL STEPS:
After receiving the training on how to use the CNC machine it was time to use it by myself. The first thing was to create an account on easel.inventables.com which is the software that is needed in order to carve anything on the CNC machine. Then I logged into the NounProjects website and looked for an object to be carved. I chose a dog because one of my closest friend’s birthday is next month, and she is obsessed with them so I wanted to make one as her birthday present.
After going through many different dog designs, I found a really cute one. I made some slight modifications to the object for the drill to be able to carve all the features of the dog. I also made by hand the outline of the dog by modifying some of the points through easel Figure 1.
Figure 1: Dog ready to be cut
Once I had the file all set I went to the ODEK to actually carved it. I selected the wood (pine) with measurements 12inx5inx0.75in and added these characteristics into easel. Then I secured the wood, followed all the steps to be able to carve, set the z-probe and hit the carve bottom. As the z-probe was not working I set the z axis manually. Everything was going fine until I started seeing smoke, Figure 2. Stop the carve and saw that it was because the wood was too thick for the drill to go through.
Figure 2: Burned wood
To solve this problem I took another piece of wood and put it through the planner of the woodshop to make it thinner (until it was 0.5in). This time when running the CNC machine everything went smooth and I was able to get my dogs.
2. POST PROCESSING THE WOOD:
Once I had the dogs I took some sand paper (first 100, then 400 and last 600) to make them look smoother. This was not as easy as I expected because of the eyes and mouth of the dogs. After sanding them I took a sponge and stained them with dark walnut for the whole face, and black stain for the eyes and the mouth.
One of them looks a bit lighter than the other because at first I didn’t mix the stain well enough. Last, once the stain was dried I added some finishing oil to one of them first. This oil removed part of the stain from the eyes so when adding the oil to the other one I didn’t apply it to the eyes, Figure 3.
Figure 3: Final dogs
3. COST:
Assuming that the equipment cost is negligible:
- Wood (2 pieces): $45
- Sponge, Stains & Oil: $2
- Labor: 4h x 20$/h = $80
- Total = $127
If everything had gone fine since the beginning real cost with only one piece of wood and 3h of labor = $80
