PTO X-Carve

Decided to flex the Xcarve muscle and make some custom ornaments for family members ( my grandmother used to give us ornaments every year and those are the ones that were used to decorate my own tree in my adult life, so I figured I would carry that tradition on to my nieces and nephews ) and since I have Vcarve and a Xcarve I figured it was only fitting that I design, manufacture, and paint them myself. Started by finding a fair use, free template pattern of a reindeer I liked and then imported it into Vcarve and resized for my 3 x 3, wooden stock, and modified some of the features of the import to be better for cutting, replaced imported circles with real ones drawn in Vcarve so they would be smoother. Added a ribbon hole feature and generated some code. Cut Stock pieces about 4mm thick  Poly stock with a nice brown and let dry Clamp and Run Gcode, run time was 7 minutes, as it was a small end mill for the fine detail Paint, dry, and insert ribbon Di

A couple of years ago I had built the normal 2 x 4 and plywood version of corn-hole, they are big bulky, and heavy. They weight in at 27 LBS a piece, or 54 LBS for the set. They are great for get together at my house but are hard to move and can take up a lot of room in the back of the hatchback. A family member asked if I could make a set for a cousins wedding as a gift, in the wedding livery colors to boot. I figured it was a perfect chance to design a new lighter set and make it easier to carry as well. I used Pine 4 x 1 and nice 1/2 " cabinetry plywood. I designed all the Parts in Solid Works, making sure the legs swing and stop at the correct height for regulation corn-hole. I did not include the screws and hardware but did use the center of gravity tools in solid works to put the handles at the correct spot so that they will not tip as you carry them. Fire up V-Carve and make the needed GCODE for the X-Carve Start Screwing, and adjusting the fit of

 I received my kickstarter backed Suckit Dust Boot  and installed that before cutting out this sign. The installation was easy ( besides my non inventables stepper being a touch longer then expected), I had to remove my Z axis stepper and insert the pieces unlike teh directions which stated you should be able to get it in there without disassembly. But that was the hardest part. Everything else worked great and it functions great. Way less dust to contend with with the boot and vacuum going. With the new addition in place I cut my first practice poly, cut and paint sign for a local business www.quinnwoodbats.com  they harvest and manufacture all their bats here in Maine. I sanded the whole thing smooth and cut the bracket pocket on the back so it will sit flush on the wall.  Liberally added a few coats of poly as I knew I would be profile cutting the final shape and drips did not matter Carved a v-carve program with Mach4, 60 degree engrave bit for the black and orange

Reading around on the inventables forums, I found a post about a new web based CAM generator from STLs, it also does other functions FDM and LASER, called kiri moto . For a web based CAM generator it does a good job, it is a work in progress and has been updated with new features already. Read the thread above for all that has happened in the past month. As for my project, I had some STL files for things I have 3D printed in the past, so I sliced and processed some code from kiri:moto. You can manage your tools and Post Processors in the web page and post code quickly. The videos and instructions are good to start but the results are the true test. Overall I am very happy with how it cut, I started in foam just so I could not worry about stray code and as it is not a simulator, like some other CAM software. It made good code for a free web based CAM generator and I look forward to the new additions as the developer continues improving this tool.  At this time I am eva

Well not my first ( I used the 2d drawings from inventables for the clamps to make a couple of clamps) but the most in-depth and coolest one to date. I designed a hat and mitten rack for a friends children in SolidWorks, it provides 10 hangers per child for gloves, mittens, boots, or hats. It was designed around the constraints that it must all be machined from one 31" x 31" piece of wood. This includes the two halves and the base or feet. The two halves interlock to form what looks like a tree and that allows it to be small while having plenty of space for all of the drying needs of two small children. V Carve Pro 7.0 is used for creating the code for my x carve to run in Mach4 I spaced out all the pieces in Solid Works by 7.5 mm to insure a 1/4 end mill could pass between all the parts without nicking and damaging any of the parts. I then used 1/4  Yonico end mill at 30ipm with a step down of 1.0 mm and a 40% step over to profile all of the pieces. I also used th

I followed these steps: for the X and Y using the same shinwa machinist rule  and an engraving bit: I used a dial indicator to calibrate my Z axis as in this video I then calculated the change from the measured vs actual that I came up with from the initial setup and changed my settings in Mach4. I have not had to re-calibrate since I originally setup my X-Carve but I have also not pushed it too hard as of this point.