Went to a recent workshop at the local Makerspace to make a cutting board with the GF, was a very nice time and intro to woodworking. One section of my board kept on falling off after the gluing process (learned later that you have to alternate the grains to get it to stick). Anyway, I had three pieces of various wood glued together and after much deliberation came up with this jewelry tray that has space for necklaces and earrings as shown in this extremely professional picture I took…
Material: Walnut, Maple, and Red Oak (I think)
Dimensions: 11"L x 2"W x 0.75"H
Finish: Sanded with 220 grit and used Mineral Oil to seal
Bit Used: 1/8" Single Flute Spiral Upcut End Mill from the Inventables Carving Bit Starter Set (I actually think its a great deal, no shade to Ryan)
Design: Fusion 360 for CAD and CAM. Used 3D Adaptive, 2D Pocket and 2D Contour.
Machining Time: ~7hrs using 20mm/s and 1mm stepdown for roughing and finishing passes.
Had a recent birthday present that I had to make so I went to my local Menards and they had these “hardwood” cutting boards on clearance for $10. I’ve seen a lot of epoxy resin cutting boards so I wanted to try one and if I get to a point where I can sell some things these wouldn’t be an issue. My biggest challenges I had with these was getting depth correct which after sacrificing another board I finally figured out, finding food safe epoxy resin (sourced from Michael’s), and getting a black from food coloring because again I wanted food safe. My recommendation is when using food coloring only use the gel based and not the water based coloring. Was running into issues with bleeding.
Material: Who knows, it says hardwood on the label so my guess is Maple
Dimensions: Inlay - 9"L x 3" H x 1.75mm depth cut
Finish: Used orbital sander with 120 grit and 220 grit discs to sand the epoxy level to the board and then finished with a beeswax / mineral oil finish for cutting boards
Bit Used: 1/8" 45 Deg V-Bit from the V1 Store
Design: Affinity Designer to create the text / SVG and then Estlcam carving function for CAM.
Machining Time: ~1 hr using v-bit to a 1.75mm depth and 0.1mm finish.
Two very great projects. 7 hours if cut time on the first one? That is dedication.
Peter Brown (Shop Time) had a couple videos about resin does from house items. The winner in my mind was watercolors from the dollar store. I know you’re thinking, I want food safe, but I bet they actually are. Children eat stuff like that all the time. He just popped them out and smashed them before adding them.
Yeah I’m not sure why it took 7 hours. There wasn’t anything too complex and I was going at 20mm/s though my DOC was 1mm. Any tips for speeding up the process would be greatly appreciated though I think maybe using a 1/4" bit for roughing could help greatly and also reduce the amount of z-travel on finishing passes.
I think the reason why the coloring comes into question is when using it as an actual cutting board that the knife can tear up the epoxy and you can ingest it.
I took inspiration from @JJWHarris and made a sign for a friend’s newborn baby. I went with what I think were really aggressive cuts on the outline and I think it came out great. I originally had a workpiece that was about 7/8" thick that I had to cut down and I really wish I had a planar because overall it was a bit uneven in places but I think it came out really well. I ended up getting some weathered gray stain and matte finish.
Material: Hard Maple
Dimensions: 10″L x 8″W x 0.5″H
Finish: Sanded with 220 grit and used Verathane Weathered Gray and Verathane Matte Finish
Bit Used: 1/8″ Dual Flute Spiral Upcut End Mill from the V1 and the 1/8" 45 Deg V-bit from V1.
Design: Affinity Designer for the design, and exported to SVG then EstlCam to cut. Used engrave and carve for the cuts.
Machining Time: ~1.5 hrs using 20mm/s at 2mm DOC with 45% step over with 2 flute 1/8” end mill. I don’t remember the v-bit feeds and speeds.
My family and I went to Yellowstone over the summer and I have been interested in creating Topo maps out of wood after finding Noah Lorang’s articles on Make Magazine. After looking up what these cost to purchase finished I was also determined to make my own. It was a long process of learning but I was able to get everything figured out. Big props to EstlCam to be able to handle high triangle count STL files. Without that program I wouldn’t be able to get anything done in the resolution I wanted.
If any questions let me know.
If you are interested one of the best sites to get topo data from is http://touchterrain.geol.iastate.edu/ - if you have any questions about getting data email those guys. They are so helpful and great to work with.
Material: Maple
Dimensions: 8″L x 8″ W x 0.6" H
Finish: Satin Finish shellac for mine and then glossy shellac for the Christmas gifts
Bit Used:
1/8″ 45 Deg V-Bit from the V1 Store
1/4" 2-Flute End Mill for Roughing
1/8" Ball nose for finish
1/8" 2-Flute End Mill for Outline
Design: QGIS to get elevation data / AccuTrans 3D to convert to STL / Repetier to orient STL file / ESTLCam for CAM
Machining Time: 6 hours total - 45 mins for roughing / 4 hours for finishing / 15 mins for text / 1 hour for outline
My first try at laser etching anodized aluminum. Made a Skunk Works luggage tag. The famous skunk on one side and my contact info on the other. Used and ended up purchasing Lightburn for $40. Well worth it in my opinion and a good project overall. Looking forward to lasing more things.
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Laser is a 3.5W banggood laser. Ran 1000mm/min @ 100% power with 2 passes.
I’m also giving Lightburn a try, it looks promising, but I can’t get the laser to fire. I’m using the same laser from Banggood with RAMPs and Marlin. Did you have to do anything special to get it working?
Thanks also for posting the speed and power settings!
Thanks Shane. Are you able to get the laser to turn on at all with a M106 S5 or M106 S10? If not I found that the TTL cable on my laser had to be alternated. For example it is red and black but for the TTL cable the black is the (+) signal and the red is the (-) signal.
After that I just set it up normally and it worked. Also the Lightburn tutorials are very informative.
