To kick this off… a Beginner’s Becoming
During the last three weeks, I’ve been working in the OEDK Maker Bar to create a replica of a die used in Dungeons & Dragons (Henceforth ‘D20’). I chose the Beginner’s difficulty, which led me to taking an image found on the Noun Project and utilizing both Carbide Create & Motion to successfully create the piece on the Nomad 3. After downloading the required file of the D20 from the Noun Project, I started the process of prototyping…
Perpetulant Prototyping
To start off this process, I loaded the .svg file to Carbide Create to produce the necessary gcode and set the appropriate dimensions for the cut wood piece. After scaling the D20, I utilized the shape builder in Create to place a border around it to ensure it could be cut out of the utilized wood piece. Once these were set, the Tool0Path now had to be configure. In this, the Contour subcategory was utilized to set the depths of the different aspects of the shown D20 piece.
D20 Piece found on Noun Project
The outer border piece was set to a different depth from the depth of the art pieces at a depth equal to the height of the piece to ensure that it could be easily removed from the CNC machine and wood. The design, also, was set to be a height of .1″ to ensure it could be seen. Finally, the tool was set to be a 1/8″ endmill wherein the generated gcode was downloaded.
As shown, the wood was loaded into the Nomad 3 and initialized with the Probe. However, in this first milling process my initial mill of the D20 was a failure, in that the 1/8″ endmill was too large for the more ornate portions of the D20 design. Pockets splintered and a large amount of scraping was evident. To compensate for this, as shown, the endmill was instead set to a smaller 1/16″ endmill in Carbide Create and ran once again in Carbide Motion. This new piece was more accurate to the initial design, and furthermore did not have any splinters/deformations that would ruin the aesthetic of the piece.
Both Milled Pieces of the D20
Finalizing Touches
To finish off this piece, the milled pieces now had to be post-processed. To do this, an iterative set of sandpaper was used to smooth out the rougher portions of the endmill (i.e. smooth out the border of the piece & soften the wood itself). Past this, the pieces were stained gradient-ly to create a more aesthetic end piece with a clear coat layer to ensure the piece could be protected from exterior damage. In this final part, after everything was set and dried both pieces, and the project, were now finished!
Stained & Clear-Coated Finished Products
Relevant Review
Room for improvement on the next CNC Milling Project
- Configuring the CNC Equipment more effectively
- Time was lost in not knowing the end-mills could be used in the probing process – next time with this knowledge the processes can be more easily replicated/produced
- Utilizing more Finishing Passes
- While the 1/16″ end mill worked effectively, some of the interior portions were still marked/cut, diminishing the end aesthetic. A ball nose end mill could be used in the future to smooth out the rougher starting pass
Despite these complications and setbacks, I enjoyed the CNC-Milling Process and look forward to CNC Milling more into the future on the Final Project!
Costly Costs
- Materials
- Time:
- 2 hours at Texas Median CNC Miller Wage ($24.68): $49.36
- Overhead:
- Estimate: $10
Total Cost of CNC Milling Project: $64.24
Since my last project, I utilized a number of testing processes before milling to ensure a more refined final product. For the final project, I’ll utilize my CNC-testing process to ensure no time is wasted in the final development process and that the final producst is aesthetically plaeasing.
