I worked on a few components for Tom who I share the workshop with this week along with finishing up my replica of Abraham Lincoln's death-mask. My new computer arrived, which required some set-up and I finally assembled workbench, so the workshop is now 90% operational. Next week I just need to get legs on the desk in the office and move everything to its final position before organising all the tools and finishing materials - at the moment they are all stuffed into boxes so I can never find anything. Like any good workshop, I want to lay everything out in logical places so I feel like I should be able to find things even though I'll still end up leaving them lying around and actually never be able to track down what I need...
The relatively simple components I made for Tom this week presented some interesting challenges and were a good test of the CNC's vacuum hold-down along with its power and precision for deep cutting. One of the shapes I cut was out of 75mm (3 inch) thick poplar. I used a half-inch tool to cut them out and the machine did a brilliant job with them, I did not cut all the way through but still down to 70mm which was impressive (see first two pics below). These will be used to create corner coves. Another job he asked me to look at was to cut some simple door stop shapes with countersunk drill holes. I was able to make a single quick-prototype which we checked to make sure it would work. Once that was passed as being OK then I setup the machine to cut 78 of them which was as many as I could fit on the oak board. (see pics 3, 4 and 5 below) Again the machine performed really well cutting these and the only thing I should have taken the time to do was to optimise the toolpaths more in the software although this was not too problematic as I had other things to work on. One of these was finishing up my replica of Abraham Lincoln's death-mask (see pic 6 below) which involved some work with the Dremel and sand paper. This is made from oak butcher block kitchen worktop scrap. Originally it was just a proof of concept but I'm really pleased with how its turned out and the butcher block gives it an intriguing patchwork effect. There is still a bit more sanding and oiling to finish this but I'll properly document the whole project soon.
