Primo signs, vcarving, games, and a new cnc design

No, the other end of the boards are milled with offsetting joints. Enjoy as the box joints come out super tight, perfectly matched.

1 Like

Aha! :smacks_forehead: Thanks!

With your vertical CNCing have you tried dovetails? Great video here using an AVID CNC. I came here looking to see if anyone had figured out the vertical idea for CNC joints. Nice work!

1 Like

Heā€™s using JointCAM software for the dovetails.

Oof. $189. Windows only. Bummer.

I donā€™t need a new project. I donā€™t need a new project. I donā€™t need a new projectā€¦

5 Likes

Yeah, $189 just to cut joints. Big ouch.

2 Likes

Havenā€™t tried dovetailing yet, hmmmmm! Just thinking through a CAM layout without using JointCam, should be fairly simple to pull off with an endmill bit and a dovetail bit in the vertical setup as in his video. I donā€™t have a dovetail bit! Yetā€¦

I donā€™t need a new project. I donā€™t need a new project. I donā€™t need a new projectā€¦(shamelessly copying that thoughtā€¦)

I would think it would be easier to figure out how to fixture workpieces like a half-blind dovetail router jig does and cut them with a dovetail bit, than to redesign CAM and have to do a bit change in the middle. That would require a way to pass a piece vertically through the table.

But then, I donā€™t need a new project either (especially since my DC is currently in pieces in the shopā€¦)

If you can mount the board vertically, keep in kind you can also do shapes other than dovetails. A more curved dovetail, like a jigsaw puzzle, would be easier for our rotating round bits.

1 Like

So glad Iā€™m building my table with a cut out for vertical milling. This seems pretty awsome!

I like your thinking.

If one eliminated the sharp inside corners on the tails, they could be cut flat on the CNC. The pins would still need to be cut vertically, but no special dovetail bit would be required.

Thereā€™s really an infinite variety of different joint shapes that could be done this way.

Iā€™m afraid that jointcam seems crazy expensive for what it does. Even I could hand write the gcode for the finger joints.

A script to write the gcode wouldnā€™t be much harder. A few inputs like bit diameter, board width, desired finger width (or number of fingers, or fingers/inch, etc) is all that would be required. Iā€™m pretty sure I could write something like this. Although there are guite a few others here who could do a better job much faster than I could. (hint hint, nudge nudge)

2 Likes

If I were to tackle a project like that, I would skip the gcode and output straight svg or dxf. Then you could use whatever cam you wanted. You could even make it an openscad script (or inkscape plugin, or freedcad script). There arenā€™t many variables. But it would easier for everyone to use if it was just a javascript app like sandify that spit out svg.

That hint hint wasnā€™t directed specifically at you @jeffeb3. Youā€™re contributions here are already over and above. There are a number of regulars on the forum who are good programmers though, whereas Iā€™m a barely capable self taught hackā€¦8^)

Producing svg or dxf makes good sense. For me personally though, that moves from the ā€œI think I know how to do thisā€ realm into the ā€œUhhh thatā€™s going to require a heaping helping of learninā€™ā€ zone. 8^)

3 Likes