To represent my food addiction, I CNC’d the following icon using the Nomad, sanded the final products, and finished them off with a clear satin finish.
I thought this would be a simple process, but as per usual, it took me a lot longer than expected.
I started by going onto thenounproject.com to find an icon that I could use. Instead of being basic and choosing a medical icon, I decided to divert my focus to food, my real passion in life (please don’t tell my medical school, this is a secret between you and me). I found an icon that I liked and using the instructions from the document as well as my one-on-one workshop training, set up the file, and fired up the Nomad. However, the Nomad started making a problematic grating sound about a minute in, so I paused the run and examined the piece. The wood that I had been using for the piece was way too thick for the bit to cut all the way through, resulting in the bit breaking.
I realized that the thickness of the piece would have to be between 1/4″ and 9/16″ (just read the instructions carefully, kids), so I went on the hunt around the OEDK to find some appropriately thick, but sufficiently smooth wood (to ensure that it would stay in place and stick on to the Nomad bed). But alas, all the good pieces I could find were too thick to use. So I grabbed a number of pieces and planed them to the appropriate width.
I went back to the Nomad, opened up Carbide Create and imported my noun of choice.
I measured the dimensions of the wood piece I was going to use and inputted that into Carbide Create. But when I looked at the Nomad bed, I noticed that previous users had carved out part of the bed itself when cutting out their pieces, so I decided to use a sacrificial piece of wood underneath my actual piece, and added the width of that on Carbide Create as well. The pieces of wood were secured in place using double sided tape, but I took special caution to avoid placing tape where I though the bit was going to cut all the way through.
Then, I scaled up the noun so that it was at least 3 inches as was required by the assignment. I continued to follow the instructions, and set the tool path for each line so that it would either do a contour or a pocket. With the edge contour, I took special attention to setting the depth to a little longer than the thickness of my wood piece so that it would cut all the way through but only cut a little bit into the sacrificial wood. I especially made sure the final cut through the whole piece was the last cut in the file, so that the piece would stay in place while the inner details were being done.
I checked the simulation, saved the Gcode, imported it to Carbide Motion, initialized the machine according to the instructions, and then ran it. It only took 12 minutes!
As you can see, the first product didn’t look very good. There were too many pockets, and the contours for each line, so they destroyed some of the details. I went back to Carbide Create, removed some of the toolpaths, and reCNC’d the piece, ending up with…
This piece looked much because the details were distinguishable and the cuts weren’t too wide. So I did the exact same process for another piece and ended up with two.
As you can see, they needed to be sanded. I spent a considerable amount of time sanding them using the 150, then 220, grit sand paper. It was especially difficult to do the edges, but they looked really smooth after I was done with them.
The left is before, and the right is after sanding.
Finally, against my better wishes, I decided to put a clear satin stain on these two pieces. I know it helps wood pieces, but I always have trouble with getting wood to stain evenly. I stained both sides and left them to dry overnight, only to return to see that the paper roll that I had left them on had fused to the bottom of the pieces.
So I had to resand the back to remove the paper from it and I also had to resand a bit of the front remove dark debris that had gotten onto the pieces. This left some parts looking different than other parts, but if I were to do this again I would refrain from clear satin stain and opt for something more colorful instead. Additionally, I would attempt to do something a little bit more complicated, like the mountains that so many people carved out for this project. But overall, this was a really cool introduction to CNC!
Cost Analysis
- 1/4″ Plywood: $6.74
- Clear Satin Stain: $22.97
- Sandpaper (includes 150, 220): $2.39
- Double-sided tape for Nomad: $14.00
- Nomad: from OEDK
- Labor: 7 hours at $7.25 per hour = $50.75
- Total: $96.85
