Alessa’s Jewelry Box | ENGI 210: Prototyping and Fabrication

I think this assignment was the one I was most excited for because I think it had so much potential for an interesting and/or cool outcome. When I was first brainstorming what to do with this assignment, I immediately wanted to do something related to Lebanon, which is where my dad’s half of the family is from. I found a topographical map of lebanon on wikipedia that I then stripped down to doable layers for the CNC machine. The only issue is once I completed it I realized I had created the shapes incorrectly and my only option was to do an inverted topographic map. I decided to go ahead with printing it and thought it would still be cool. I used the shapeoko and once I reached the last pass through for the last cut the wood decided to move! I later concluded that I didn’t clamp it down well enough. Because of this and the length of the print I decided to choose another project; however, below are some pictures of the process.

After doing some research on things I could do I decided to make a jewelry tray but with a twist! I could make the jewelry box with a stand for necklaces. I created the design on inkscape and imported it into Carbide Create. The only issue was my name was really small so I had to change the original font. I then clamped it down well in the shapeoko and did the print! There were two issues: first my name had no definition whatsoever and second the hole for the stand didn’t account for the kerf of the machine nor for the depth of the wood. I fixed this in carbide create and printed it again!

To fix the kerf I just made the hole an inside cut and made the stand an outside cut. Since I was confident with this cut I decided to do my second wood block in the smaller machine at the same time. I clamped both down well, measured width, length, and height of each and entered the respective information into the computers. I also honed the device using the corner probe box!

When doing a cut I left a bit of wood on it because it kept the wood stable and decided to use the bandsaw afterwards. Both cuts were successful and the bandsaw ended up being simple and helpful. I then used pliers and sandpaper to remove the rest of the excess wood.