To start this project I thought about what I wanted to cut. I had decided that I wanted to cut out a figure from New Super Mario Bro’s and found this toad on thingiverse.

Once I found the toad i downloaded the svg and opened it in carbide create. Once in carbide I sized my toad accordingly (3.4inx3.1in) to fit the dimensions needed and my wood. I then created the toolpaths on carbide create to cut out my piece as well as create pockets on the inside. After exporting the toolpaths as Gcode I was ready to start my first cut.

My first cut went well. I used the Nomad and had no issues initializing the machine or executing my cuts. I did stop my cut roughly halfway through to vacuum out the wood chippings that come off during the cnc process.

My cuts total time for one cut was 16 minutes so my two cuts didn’t take long. After I had finished with my two cuts I was slightly unhappy with how they came out.

Shortly after I had finished I showed my pieces to Dr. Wettergreen and he showed me a toad from years back that inspired me to slightly change my piece. I decided to keep the same svg file but change what I created as a pocket. Once I had my new design I knew I wanted to paint it and add some color.

To prepare my piece for any painting I sanded it to remove all the small shavings that remained from the cnc machine process. Afterwards I painted all the circles and half circles red. From there I saw people using polyurethane in their cnc projects and I thought I would use it in the larger pocket of my piece as well as the eyes. I cnc’ed the big pocket and the eyes to two different depths (0.1in and 0.2in respectively) however that is no longer visible after pouring in the polyurethane. After poring in the polyurethane I realized that some of the black from the eyes bled a little to solve this I painted over all the visible surface wood.

This gave me a result I was happy with.

 

Cost Analysis:

Labor 4hrs($15/hr): $60

wood: $10

Polyurethane: $1

Machine Costs ($40/hr) 2.5hrs: 100

Total: $171