This weeks homework was quite a test of patience and persistence. By the end, it felt very rewarding to hold my finished pieces in my hands after knowing how long it took to get there!
First, I found a .svg file on thenounproject.com of mount fuji with a building in the foreground.
When I showed my image to the TAs they said it would be nearly impossible to CNC something with this much detail. I tried manipulating the file in Carbide Create to simplify the design – removing the dots and some of the finer details. This was a learning curve in itself, figuring out how to use the tools in carbide create to change the vectors, but ultimately I got to something like this:
I wanted to use differing pocket depths to differentiate the foreground from the background. Before I did the initial cut, I stained my piece of wood with red mahogany wood stain so that when I cut away it would leave the uncut sections a nice dark color. Using the Nomad 3 I made the mill depth 0.25in for the sky and for the mountain/house I used 0.125 mill depth.
To get the finer details, I had to switch between the 1/8″ and 1/16″ drill bits.
Unfortunately, in the final contour cut my piece slipped from the vice and cut through the design 🙁 I also was not super happy with the way the design looked after I simplified it. So I decided to go back to the drawing board. I realized I could get a decent amount of fine detail with the 1/16″ drill bit, so I only had to move some of the dots around and I could get most of the original detail.
This time, with all of the previous knowledge I had gained – the process was much smoother and I got great detail!
Unfortunately, during the final contour cut, I didn’t cut all the way through so I had to repeat the cut. The second cut was not perfectly aligned and it cut some off the boarder of the piece. During this time, the cord to the homing block got stuck under the moving platform. After consulting the TA on duty and staff, we were advised to turn the Nomad on its back and unscrew the platform, which allowed us to move the platform back and free the cord.
On the second cut, I cut through the bottom with the tabs intact!
The second cut went even smoother, with a cut time of around ~30 min:
To finish the pieces, I sanded the tabs off using 40-grit sandpaper and to remove splinters from the cut I used 200-grit and carefully smoothed the edges. I used a small brush and danish oil to color the mountain/foreground and tung oil to finish the background/sky. I hoped the colors would be more defined to give the piece more dimension in the piece. I also went back over the uncut edge with the red mahogany to deepen the color and finished the sides and back as well.
Before staining: 
After staining: 
Final thoughts:
Although this project was frustrating at times, I felt like by the end I had a good sense of how to troubleshoot the machine and how to use the software to edit designs.
Clean workplace:
Cost analysis:
| Cost Type | Cost | Price | Source | Quantity | Total |
| Materials | 1×4 Board | $2.98/piece | link | 1 | $2.98 |
| Red mahogany stain | $7.98/piece | link | 1 | $7.98 | |
| Danish Oil | $13.98/piece | link | 1 | $13.98 | |
| Tung Oil | $16.24/piece | link | 1 | $16.24 | |
| Paint brushes set | $7.99/piece | link | 1 | $7.99 | |
| Sand Paper set | $5.99/piece | link | 1 | $5.99 | |
| Labor | Woodworking Operator | $18/hr | link | 8 | $144 |
| Prototyping Engineer (You!) | $18.27/hr | link | 4 | $73.08 | |
| Overhead | Facility Cost (Machine Time) | $50/hr | link | 8 | $400 |
Total: $672.24
