so how’d you do it?
I did the CNC project by myself, with immense help from Shane, Izzy, and various lab assistants. This project was frustrating! The CNC is a fickle beast, but it was willing to work with me at least twice, with some coaxing. I appreciate it for that. This project taught me the importance of spreading out your learning over several days EARLY after the introduction of a project, so it actually sticks with you, and not trying to iteratively learn everything through the deadline.
Six arms and too many tags
The first file I wanted to print for this project was a six-armed person who kind of looked like how I felt on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Plus, the creator was Georgian, which is cool. I loaded it up, and realized I would have to add a tag to each of the arms on the little dude, plus the head and legs and psyched myself out of working with the piece. Back to the drawing board.
simply look around and view it
I settled on an eyeball (stunning no one), and set to work scavenging for softwood. This… was difficult. The first time I went to cut, I forgot to turn on the spindle, so the drill bit just sort of sadly dragged my piece of wood around in the small area I had allotted for the piece.
More of them, more!!!
In a long list of miserable failures, I tried in vain to cut eyeballs out of wood. These failed for several reasons:
Attempt 2: Positioned my file wrong and didn’t tape the wood down hard enough.
This one was unfortunate, because it was the only time I tried using the Nomad to cut. The wood kept wiggling around on the plate even though I had pushed it down quite a bit and created a tape straitjacket special for the cut, but it simply didn’t work.
Attempts 3 and 4: The Shapeoko doesn’t like me.
Two more times I tried to coax the Shapeoko into producing an eyeball without making demon noises. I even got rid of the pocket cut where the sclera would be. Two more times I was denied. All of this with the additional effort of wizarding the little green positioners into place, which was a unique challenge.
Attempt 5: Didn’t use bottom depth
This one was just dumb. I can’t believe I missed this. And yet.
I tried machining this piece more than once at further depths, to little avail.
The Shapeoko started making terrible noises again, and the green positioners weren’t keeping the wood in place.
Huzzah! (Attempts 6 and 7)
Then, I finally got it. I popped out two perfectly fine CNC parts! I just had to use a slightly lower bottom depth than the piece was giving me. I also used tape on the bottom of the piece. Worked like a charm. Look how excited I am to have things in my hands. Truly the face of joy. I slapped some linseed oil on them, and bam, the dang thing was done.
Conclusion
This project was hard mostly because I had to stay next to the CNC machine for its entire runtime, and I might not even have something I could submit at the end. I’m glad I learned how to work with it, though.
cost chart
| Category | Item | Cost | Source | Quantity | Total ($) |
| Materials | Wood (roughly 4x4in/planklet) | $15.72/16×48 in piece (768in) | Amazon | 7 planklets (112 in) | $2.29 |
| Linseed Oil | $11.13/cannister | Amazon | 1 cannister | $11.13 | |
| Labor | CNC Machinist | $19.64 | Indeed | 6 hours | $117.84 |
| TOTAL | $131.26 |
