CNC Machining: Dango

• Hsing-Yi Chen

For this CNC machining homework, I chose to cut out the shape of a Dango 🍡 found on NounProject.

On Carbide Create, I did two different depth of pocket cuts: 0.05″ depth for the soy sauce on top, and 0.07″ for the dango underneath. I decided on this depth difference because I want the soy sauce to look like sitting on top of the dango. Then, I did two contour cuts all the way to the stock bottom: one between the two dangos, and one around the whole shape (with five roughly evenly spread out tabs).

After the file was ready, I fixed my piece of wood on the bed with double-sided tape. Then, I set up Nomad according to the instructions, opened my file on Carbide Motion, and started the cut. The total cut time for one piece took 29 minutes. For post-processing, I started with low grit sandpaper to sand away the tabs that were sticking out. After that, I used 500 grit and then 1000 grit sandpaper to smoothen all surfaces.

The second post process I used was oiling the wood. I took a piece of fabric, dipped some oil on it, and wiped it on all surfaces of my piece of wood. I let the piece sit for around a day and came back to fill the pocket cuts with resin. Initially, I wanted the dango to be white, and the soy sauce to be blackish-brown color. However, there was only white coloring available, so I filled all of them with white. I mixed the epoxy solutions A and B with a 1:1 volume ratio and added a small amount of white (that’s enough to result in a white solution). I left the resin to sit for 24 hours.

This is my final result. The effects are not as good as I wanted them to be. If I could pour a different color resin on top or stain that part of wood before pouring a transparent resin, the contrast would be more clear. Nonetheless, it was a great learning experience in CNC machining and playing with resin.

Cost analysis

  • Labor cost: $15/hr x 6hr = $90
  • Material (approximate):
  • TOTAL: $92

Clean workspace

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