Hi everyone! This week I worked on CNCing a basketball for our project and think it turned out pretty good! I was a bit nervous to start this one as I’d heard working with the CNC machine wasn’t always the easiest, but with the help of a few classmates and friends, got the machine working well and felt pretty efficient through the whole project! Follow along as I make my wooden basketball for the CNC noun project…
DAY 1: Prepping the File (1 hour)
To get started, I wanted to come in and get my file prepared before finding a time to use the machine. By following the directions on the website, I was able to find a basketball shape from online, set the tool path, create pockets, and save it all to come back to later. I forgot to take pictures during this part, but made sure to email the files to myself so I could pull them up on the CNC computer later.
I also measured the dimensions of both pieces of wood I had and made two files so I’d be able to use both in my allotted time on the CNC machine efficiently. The dimensions of each were:
- 3.433×4.8915×0.708 inches
- 3.4295×4.887×0.639 inches
DAY 2: CNCing, Sanding & Staining (3 hours)
For this day, I made to sure to block out a bunch of time in my day just to make sure I’d be able to get it all done. The day before I made sure to book the Fabman for 1.5 hours which was a perfect amount of time for what I needed to do (with some classmates’ help!!). When I got into the OEDK, I pulled up my file from my email and uploaded it to the Carbide Motion software.
Some of my friends had problems with their wood not being secured and it flying off so I made sure to put a lot of tape on the bottom in order to avoid having to start all over mid-cut.
After that, I was a bit nervous the initializing was going to take a long time or I’d do something wrong, but it actually went pretty fast and I was able to get my piece CNCing in no time.
After initializing, I started my cut. It said it would take 22 minutes, but ended up taking a little less. My first piece turned out great, but I was on a bit of a time crunch with my time on the machine so I made sure to start on the next one as soon as the first finished.
I followed the same steps for my next piece and it was a bit thinner so made sure to take that account with the z dimension value, but for some reason the cut didn’t go as deep as the first one. I’m not sure if this was because I accidentally used the first dimensions or did something else wrong, but it was a fairly minor difference so I went forward with that cut. Below you can see the first level of the pocket not actually cutting into the wood.
After the second basketball finished up, I went over to sand and stain my two pieces. I finished just in time with my session due to speeding up the cut, but made sure there weren’t any weird noises happening when I bumped it up a few notches.
For sanding, I used a 120 grit sandpaper on all the edges both inside and outside the basketball’s pockets then stained it using the beeswax stain. I left the stain on for 20 minutes then wiped it off with a rag. I think they turned out good and am happy with my understanding of how to use the CNC machine now.
Cost Breakdown
| Cost Type | Cost | Price | Source | Quantity | Total |
| Materials | 1x4x8” wood | $3.38 | Home Depot | 1 | $3.38 |
| Beeswax Wood Polish | $9.98/bottle | Amazon.com | 1/16 bottle | $0.62 | |
| Sand Paper | $2.50/5-pack | Home Depot | 1/2 sheet | $0.25 | |
| Labor | Prototyping Engineer (You!) | $20/hour | ZipRecruiter.com | 1.5 hours | $30 |
| Machines | Facility Cost (Machine Time) | $50/month | TXRXlabs | 1.5 hours | $50 |
| TOTAL | $84.25 | ||||
