For this project, I chose to CNC a cloud. However, when I first started CNCing my clouds, they actually needed more lines and details to look like an actual cloud. Here is a picture of my first cloud that I CNCed.
From gathering insights about what other people thought regarding whether or not my piece looked like a cloud i found that many people thought it was a dog paw or a mushroom from Mario.
Seeing how it was not as obvious as I hoped it was for being a cloud, I decided to redo my design to the following one below. I was concerned that it would be too hard as the lines and details were a little more complex but it was still achievable. This cloud is a cloud form one of my favorite anime called Naruto. The cloud is the symbol of the villains of the Naruto world called the Akatsuki. The cloud itself is supposed to be filled red, while the lines are supposed to be white, and I chose to recreate this cloud.
To follow the 3″by 3″ scale, I set the dimensions of my cloud accordingly to 5″ by 3″ to still keep the proportions of the cloud intact.
When adjusting the cut, I first made an offset by 0.1 inches so that the contour cut around the cloud and would create a clear line outlining the cloud. Inside the clear line, I decided to create pocket cut where I did a pocket cut of 0.1 inches. Lastly, I did the contour cut to cut the entire thing out and set the bottom depth on outside of the outline. The path for my cut can be seen below.
I was getting slightly nervous when it came to this project because I was highly unsure whether or not cutting it out would be successful. I reserved a total of three sessions on the Nomad CNC. My faith in the machine was absent in the first two as every time I clicked start, my wood would move, and my print would be unsuccessful.
My first guess as to why the cut would be mussed up or why the would be moving wasbecause the area was not clean enough. My strategy to resolve this issue was by using the dust buster vacuum to throughly clean the cutting space, followed by applying IPA to the sacrificial layer to ensure that the space where the tape was bound would be as successful as possible.
While this helped in the sense that my pieces would be cut for longer, my wood pieces still, however, were mobile during the cut. I realized that perhaps this was an issue not with what I was doing but the wood itself. Every time I cut a piece of wood, I made sure to use the smoother, more perfect side since it would have the greater surface area to interact with the sacrificial layer.
Furthermore, when I thought about how the drill bit would be so strong that it would move the entire piece and essentially rotate it, I thought that maybe one thing I could do was use heavier pieces of wood. Heavier pieces of wood would be more resistant to movement, and therefore would not be as susceptible to drill bit motion. Additionally, I considered using more extended pieces of wood since I noticed that the longer the pieces of wood, the harder it was for the drill to produce a torque; also, the longer the piece of wood, the more surface area it would have to interact with the sacrificial wood layer. As seen below, the piece I used was even longer than the sacrificial wood layer.
Overall, after using thicker, longer, and heavier wood pieces, I produced a fine cut, as seen below.
Post Process
Initially, when I cut it out, the sides were relatively sharp. To address this I did not use a file, but instead, I used sand paper to smooth the corner of the edges since I found it easier to get in the nooks and crannies. I used the 200 grit sand paper, followed by the 400 grit. Similarly, I did the same thing to my piece’s front, back, and sides to sand them down and produce a smoother finish.
Smoothing the back surface was challenging, as the CNC did not cut through the bottom and caused imperfections on the bottom side, as seen below. I tried using the 200-grit sand paper and then the 400 paper. I could smooth out the sides, but I could not eliminate the presence of the imperfection.
After sanding them, I wanted to spray paint them. I wanted to paint the pocket red and the piece white. To do this, I created a mask using masking tape, where I made the pocket first and then applied spray paint to coat it white. I then waited around twenty minutes for it to dry and then used the red. Sometimes, I did this in the reverse order, but the outcome remained.
Sometimes, my paint was uneven, so I used sandpaper or the 400 grit sand paper to sand my paint layer and then spray repainted it. I did this several times since my paint layer was a little uneven in some areas, but my final result can be seen below.
Things to Improve
For things to improve next time, I wish I did better with the spray painting. I made the masking tape layer by applying the tape and fitting it to the features I wanted to shield with a popsicle stick. This was probably not the most successful method as I could have used the vinyl cutter, but because of my method, I may have produced not completely uniform features. Furthermore, I wish I had been more patient with the sprays of paint and wished I waited longer for it to dry so I could have entirely consistent features.
Cost Analysis
| Materials | 1″x3″x8ft | $11.53/8ft | Lowes | 2 ft | $3 |
| Red Spray paint | $9.58/can | Wallmart | 1 can | $9.58 | |
| White Spray Paint | $9.98/can | Wallmart | 1 can | $9.98 | |
| Labor | Wood Working Engineer | $18.12/hr | ZipRecuiter – https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Woodworker-Salary–in-Texas#:~:text=As%20of%20Nov%2013%2C%202023,(75th%20percentile)%20in%20Texas. | 3 hours | $54.36 |
| Prototyping Engineer | $15.00 | Zippia | 1 hour | $15.00 | |
| Spray Painter | $17.41/hour | ZipRecruiter. | 1 hour | $17.41 | |
| Overhead | Water | $27/month | Moving Texas USA | 1 hour | $0.38 |
| Misc. | Excess wood | $11.53/8ft | Lowes | 1.5 | $9.93 |
| Total | $120 |
