This wasn’t necessarily a ‘bad’ day in the shop, but it went along with the rest of the crud that happened.
I started the weekend thinking I’d build a new laptop stand at work. The one I have was 3d printed. It works, but it’s not very elegant. I saw some designs on google images for some nice looking wooden ones, so I thought I’d borrow some ideas.
I quickly drew up a design using materials that I already had in the shop. 3/4" plywood for the sides and a 1 1/4" dowel for the cross piece.
Went out to the CNC. Threw the 1/8" end mill in the chuck and started cutting. Part way through the first cut, I hear the machine skip… sure enough, when it got back to the other end it was no longer in line with the first cut.
I setup the machine with a new start point, rerun the CAM with slower feeds (first time cutting this type of plywood), and start a new cut. Part way through the second cut, I heard a little pop, saw a little spark, and all of a sudden a little flame starts smoldering in the saw dust sitting in the pocket. Shut everything down and sure enough the bit was toast. (Lesson learned, start twice as slow as I think I should when cutting new material). I put the flame out and go inside.
After a few other projects have similar outcomes, I decide to just watch some TV. I’m watching a movie and finally decide that I’ll give the laptop stand another go. I’ll just print out the design and cut it on the bandsaw.
I go outside, back the car out of the garage, back the bike out of the garage, set up the mobile work bench. Print out the design and trace it onto a board. Go over to the bandsaw to start cutting, and just as I get through the first cut, it starts down pouring. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except for fact that my garage is setup that I have to stand outside the garage opening to use the bandsaw. I was getting soaked, and the water was splashing off of me onto the bandsaw.
I gave up. I put the bike back in the garage… in the rain. Took down the workbench. Shut the garage door and dried off the bandsaw.
All in all, I guess it wasn’t too horrible, but some days it really feels like nothing goes as planned.
