CNC Cutting Board

If this project was done with traditional woodworking techniques it would take a while to explain. Luckily I've branched out from traditional woodworking techniques and this was a fairly simple weekend project. The design is done in V-Carve and the execution is done on the OneFinity CNC. There are three carves. The first is with a v-bit and it carves out the lettering. The second is a 1/2 inch round nose to do the juice groove. The third is a 1/4 inch end mill to cut the board out. There is a slight curve to all sides which adds very little complexity except when creating the design. Everything is finished off with bronze epoxy and a mineral oil finish. Material is Sapele. 

R2D2 is Born

I'm not sure how much of this build I'll post to this particular blog. It's going to be a multi-year project that will probably never be 100% done and it really deserves a blog on it's own. I'm struggling with how to gather the content because there isn't really a clear set of steps and so far we're working on bits and pieces randomly. That means that we'll probably be building and rebuilding and making plenty of mistakes that I'm not eager to post on a blog in the order that I make them. For now I'll take plenty of pictures and consider adding a proper post here when I reach a particular milestone.

In case you hadn't already figured it out a friend of mine and I have started to build R2D2. Everything you need to get started is on Astromech.Net though we are discovering that doesn't mean everything you need to finish is there. There are so many different approaches to the build that it's hard to get clear instructions on anything. We've gone with a plywood frame because I can cut it on my CNC and we'll be 3D printing what we can. Others have gone with an aluminum frame and you can also go with Styrene or even 3D print the entire thing. They DXF files for the pieces have been very precise and even though we are using different materials and files for different parts, everything is to a standard spec so they fit together nicely. We'll build what we can though there are some parts such as the dome that we will have purchase. Check back in about 2 years as this will definitely be a 'when we have time' project rather than a build from start to finish all at once. One thing we've discovered is we may run into supply chain issues for key parts such as the wheels, controllers etc. Should still be a lot of fun. 

Bathroom Cabinet

Most of the time I take on projects that would be too expensive to buy or are a style that you can't usually buy. I will do these for myself or friends. I try to avoid doing projects for anyone that can easily be purchased, typically for less money than I can make them. The exception though is when it's a project that I feel should last forever. The cabinet here could likely be picked up from Ikea as it has very similar lines to their furniture however this one is solid wood and proper plywood with glass doors. It's 36 inches wide and 60 inches tall. It was originally designed to fit in our bathroom and the paint is the same colour as the cabinets however we felt it fit better just outside the bathroom. It's specifically designed to be 3 toilet paper rolls deep. With covid we learned the importance of having a good stock pile. We only have 2 packages so we should probably replenish. I included one fixed shelf in the middle so it would be sturdy and the shelves in each section are adjustable. It has plenty of room for all the lotions and potions my wife keeps on hands and of course plenty of room for toilet paper. 

CNC Cabinet

I've decided to cheat. Historically my woodworking has been what Mark Spagnuolo refers to as Hybrid Woodworking. It involves power tools for much of the stock prep and major cuts and hand tools for the finer details. This has worked well for me in the past. Recently however I've found I have a few projects that require more precision. For instance I'd like to do engraving or cribbage boards with carvings. These of course can be done by hand but I don't have that kind of time. I decided a couple years ago that it was time for a CNC. I've got some big projects planned but in the meantime I'm doing smaller projects that allow me to practice the art of CAD design and figuring out the right order of operations to do a new suite of projects. I had decided I wanted to have a CNC a few years ago but unfortunately there was nothing on the market that met my criteria of moderate cost, accurate, sturdy a good size for woodworking and easy to set up. There are expensive machines and then there were hobby machines that used belts which tended to stretch. When the Onefinity came on the market I knew it was what I was looking for.

My shop is a two car garage and I find I'm often dropping wood on things so I felt it was important for me to have a proper cabinet for the CNC. I thought about doing just the table but that wouldn't protect the sensitive equipment plus it wouldn't allow me to control the dust they way I wanted to. The cabinet I ended up building has a 48/48 table, is 36 inches high at the bed and has a further 36 inches above the table. I wired up plugs for the machine, the router and the lights so I can easily turn things on and off. It's worked out quite well and I've done some projects for Christmas including this beer paddle with engraving that I would not have been able to do. Many more projects planned. 

 

Squirrel Picnic table

I made the first one of these at the start of the Covid shutdown and we had great fun waiting for the squirrels to come. They were surprisingly happy to take a seat on the bench and eat pretty much anything we put out. The picture on the left was Mother's Day and I had only witness crows taking the food so far so I put out some extra peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Within minutes the squirrel was there instead. I should also mention that at the time we thought our squirrel was a male but we soon realized it was female so we had a squirrel mother for Mother's Day tea.

It takes less than an hour to go from a fence board to a table and I actually tend to make them in batches. Two 5' 1x6 cedar fence boards will make three tables. The sizes of the tops are fixed and the widths of everything else can adjust as necessary depending on how wide your 1x6 is. I use 1 inch #6 screws to assemble everything though you can just use brads.

Parts

1. 7 pieces – 1 7/8” x 8” 
2. 2  pieces – 1 ½” 12”
3. 2 pieces – 5/8” x 5/8” x 5”
4. 4 pieces – 1 ½” x 5” cut at 22.5 degrees

Assembly

1. Attach part 3 one inch in from the ends to three part 1’s to create the top. Centre part 3 across the three pieces.
2. Attach two part 4’s to each side leaving a 3/8 in gap in between.
3. Attach 2 part 2’s to the inside of the legs 1 ½ inches up from the bottom.
4. Attach 2 part 1’s to each side to make the seats.

I attached mine to the side of my fence but you could also put it on a post.

A Quick and Easy Desk

Ordinarily when I do a piece of furniture I do it with proper joinery and I try to make it to last forever. Covid has recently forced me to work from home and after borrowing desks from other family members for several months and no end for Covid in sight I felt it was time for me to have my own desk. I had limited space to put it and it was where I have to sit all day so I needed something practical. The width (36 inches) was set by the space I had, the depth (26 inches) was set by my desk at work which allowed me to have a monitor a certain distance away from me and the height (30 inches) was typical for the desks I already had.

I mentioned that I usually do proper joinery but for this desk I wasn't really sure on the design so I decided to to with simple screws with filled holes and a painted finish. This meant a quick build and if I don't like it I'm not out much time. The whole thing took a weekend. The last piece of the puzzle was the keyboard tray I got off of Amazon that took a few days to arrive. I made the width a bit bigger than I was going to because it had to fit the tray. A few decorative angle supports allowed it to fit perfectly and it needed the 26 inch depth. I have a wire chase in the back and it just fit in front of that.

Since this was going to be my all day desk I decided to splurge on a curved monitor which was much bigger than my last one. Even when we go back to work I can still use this on days I work from home so it might as well be easy on the eyes. Since this was a painted finish I went with a permanent monitor mount. This cleared up space on the desktop and made sure I had a nice secure mount for the monitor. I finished things up with a grommet for wires and one with a plugin with USB outlets. I now have virtually no wires on top and the thing is quite comfortable for working all day with the reduced blue light curved monitor and keyboard tray.

Squirrelly Whirligig

I have always liked whirligigs. It started with my grandmother who had several plastic windmill style ones as well as a few birds with spinning wings. At one point in university I made a goose whirligig with spinning wings but my goal has always been to make one with a bit more going on. I like the ones where when the propeller turns it makes a creature on top do something interesting. The classic is the logger chopping down a tree but another common one is some sort of teeter totter action which is what I went with here.

I have always been scared of the creation of the propeller but in hindsight it's really not that complicated. I have a book on whirligig to help me out and the hub just starts as a perfect square with some diagonal slots cut in it and a hole in the middle. It was a bit tricky getting the slots right in the middle of each side and I also had to make sure the width fit the plywood I had which was a bit under 1/4 inch. Once you've cut the slots and drilled the a disc the sander takes care of shaping the circle. The propellers are all just a simple propeller shape and I taped them together so I could sand them all to size at the same time.

The final complex bit was the mechanism that does the turning. I had some 1/8 inch brass rod as well as a tap and die set so creating the rod that I could attach everything to was fairly simple. The element I didn't know was how long it had to be. It took a bit of trial and error to create the rod, install it and then bend it to shape. Since I put the hole through solid wood I had to bend it in the whirligig which was a bit awkward. The rocker arm should have been 1/16 brass but I only had a coat hanger so I'll have to do that a bit better later. That length was hard to guess at as well. As with any project if I had to make it again, many steps would be much easier.

The motion of the propeller transfers to a see saw for a couple of 'squirrels'. Because I had to make everything balance nicely I ended up with the rocker arm a bit forward back than I wanted. This meant there is a bit less teeter to the totter. Ideally next time I would move that back about an inch and then the motion of the spinning would transfer closer to the middle on the teeter resulting in more totter. (If any of that makes sense.) My son designed and painted the squirrels. They are Homer Simpson if he was a squirrel. I think they look great but obviously you could replace them with any character you want. I'm thinking my next one will be something Halloween themed, maybe with spooky lights.