Latest thing you have printed / machined / cut

[ian_in_the_midlands]

Recently put together the MPCNC (Mainly printed CNC machine). My first dabble into CNC for over 30 years. Still work in progress, but I have been surprised at what I have been able to do with it so far:

 

[user 43593]

Recently put together the MPCNC (Mainly printed CNC machine). My first dabble into CNC for over 30 years. Still work in progress, but I have been surprised at what I have been able to do with it so far:

Please would you add some information about materials, roughing and finishing passes and software?

I have attached an image of a piece of m̶a̶p̶l̶e̶ (ash) 200 x 200 x 25m which was carved using Carveco Maker. Roughed (0.5mm steps) with 6.25mm two flute, straight cut, uncoated carbide endmill, Finishing pass cut with a circular pathyh from the inside out and utillised an uncoated two flute ball endmill 0.25mm in diameter. Total cut time around 2 hours. Wood finished with a creme of beeswax and a small amount of walnut oil. No sanding was applied to this piece.

EDIT: To add information.

 

[ian_in_the_midlands]

Please would you add some information about materials, roughing and finishing passes and software?

I have attached an image of a piece of maple 200 x 200 x 25m which was carved using Carveco Maker. Roughed (0.5mm steps) with 6.25mm two flute, straight cut, uncoated carbide endmill, Finishing pass cut with a circular pathyh from the inside out and utillised an uncoated two flute ball endmill 0.25mm in diameter. Total cut time around 2 hours. Wood finished with a creme od beeswax and a small amount of walnut oil. No sanding was applied to this piece.

EDIT: To add information.

Hello Jepho.
I really am only just starting off so my settings are probably way off optimal. They also change with each carving at the moment. For this reason I won't detail them as I will probably cause people more problems than I resolve. I am using Estlcam and following the V1 Engineering documentation on the MPCNC: Milling Basics - V1 Engineering Documentation. In general I am cutting at 10mm/second. Roughing with 6mm ball nose spiral upcut, 1mm depth of cut. Finish with .5mm ball nose spiral upcut.
I have found best results with cherry and walnut. I found the finish with ash to be a bit 'furry'. It looks like your turtle is in ash and the finish is much better than mine.

 

[user 43593]

Hello Jepho.
I really am only just starting off so my settings are probably way off optimal. They also change with each carving at the moment. For this reason I won't detail them as I will probably cause people more problems than I resolve.

Understood.

I am using Estlcam and following the V1 Engineering documentation on the MPCNC: Milling Basics - V1 Engineering Documentation.

Thanks for the interesting link.

In general I am cutting at 10mm/second. Roughing with 6mm ball nose spiral upcut, 1mm depth of cut. Finish with .5mm ball nose spiral upcut.

I have only been cutting wood with a CNC machine for just over 3 years so I still have an enormous amount to learn. Initially, I was quite concerned to understand upcut, downcut and compression bits. With very small details, I have found that up or down cut makes very little difference to the final workpiece and compression bits are unhelpfull if there is insufficient room for the downcut section of the cutter to do its thing. My finishing pass is always done radially from the centre outwards.

Raster cut paths leave too many obvious horizontal lines to clean up, in my opinion. I am afraid trhat I do not have a set of speeds and feed that I can say always work. I feel and listen to how the cutter progresses through the workpiece and I can vary my speeds on the fly. I rough pass using either 1 or 0.5mm de[pending on the cutter and the material but have also used certain cutters to rough pass at 4mm. My finishing passes depend on the final detail but are usally done in 0.5mm stages to preserve fine details.

I have found best results with cherry and walnut. I found the finish with ash to be a bit 'furry'. It looks like your turtle is in ash and the finish is much better than mine.

Yes, you are right... going through my records, I see that I had used ash rather than maple. I have also used cherry and walnut quite often. Walnut (see maze) is nice and takes a nice finish. It makes chips in a very predictable way too. Cherry is nice to machine and can hold a lovely finish. I think overall, I like maple because of its predictability when m and the fact that it can support very fine details. My absolute favourite wood to machine and hand finish is olive wood.

I have not used Estlecam and know nothing about it. I messed for a while with Fusion 360 and did not really get on with it. I am looking at learning to use Shapr3D this coming year. It has quite an innovative interface and I could learn to create something on an iPad that will be CNC machineable. For now, Carveco Maker is around £18 per month and it has a reasonable toolset and is relatively easy to learn and to drive.

example pix:
Maze in Walnut 200 x 200 x 25mm
Rose earring in maple
inlay 1
inlay 2

EDIT: Spelling corrections

 

[akirk]

Gift for a friend, filter paper holder made from 4mm walnut mdf, display box made from 6mm walnut mdf with 3mm acrylic sliding door.
The display box was prefinished with polycrylic and the fitler holder was prefinished with lacquer.
Wanted to try out prefinishing my laser cut projects to make things quicker and easier. I prefer lacquer so far.
View attachment 171792

What is the logic behind pre-finishing?

 

[supertom44]

What is the logic behind pre-finishing?

I'm toying with the idea of selling some products further down the line, so I wanted to see if I could optimise my workflow a bit to speed things up.
Also has the benefit of making any burn marks or soot super easy to remove, they just wipe off.
I did run a second super light super quick engrave pass along the fingers to remove the finish so that I could glue the joints.

 

[Crazy Dave]

Hi guys,
I've just got/getting into 3D printing and currently creating profiles for the various filaments that I'll probably be using.
My printer is a Bambu Lab P1S which was working fine with basic PLA until I tried printing with PLA Glossy and that's when I learnt to use brims.
It's great fun but it's a steep learning curve to get to grips with all the available settings in Bambu Studio.
Anyway I'm just introducing myself.

This is nothing special but it's the last thing I printed.

 

[paulrbarnard]

Hi guys,
I've just got/getting into 3D printing and currently creating profiles for the various filaments that I'll probably be using.
My printer is a Bambu Lab P1S which was working fine with basic PLA until I tried printing with PLA Glossy and that's when I learnt to use brims.
It's great fun but it's a steep learning curve to get to grips with all the available settings in Bambu Studio.
Anyway I'm just introducing myself.

This is nothing special but it's the last thing I printed.

That’s a very clean print.

 

[Crazy Dave]

That’s a very clean print.

Thank you, but I'm not sure how much of it is down to me or the printer lol.
Dave.

 

[paulrbarnard]

Thank you, but I'm not sure how much of it is down to me or the printer lol.
Dave.

Bamboo do seem to give good results but I’m sure there is quite a bit of operator knowledge involved.

 

[kinverkid]

These look cool, what's the advantage of using a ball valve over the more traditional blast gate?

Just an update. Been using all three ball-valves extensively and still no clogging.

 

[artie]

My new 3D printer arrived yesterday. Late Christmas pressie to my self.

I had a few more pressing jobs, but got my first print this evening.

Well you have to start somewhere.

 

[user 43593]

My new 3D printer arrived yesterday. Late Christmas pressie to my self.

I had a few more pressing jobs, but got my first print this evening.

Well you have to start somewhere.

View attachment 173334

Very nice! I had not realised that a giraffe could look so smooth.

 

[Sachakins]

Early start on Easter bunnies then

 

[SimonStevensCanes]

I've been designing a series of French cleat workshop storage solutions. All 3mm mdf/ply based, the same width, with their own French cleat. This allows me to stack them on each other when appropriate. It seems to be solving the main grip I have with French cleat storage, in that it's very flexible in terms of where you put things, but it's not very efficient if you can only have 1 "layer" on the wall.

 

[Sachakins]

View attachment 173528 View attachment 173529
I've been designing a series of French cleat workshop storage solutions. All 3mm mdf/ply based, the same width, with their own French cleat. This allows me to stack them on each other when appropriate. It seems to be solving the main grip I have with French cleat storage, in that it's very flexible in terms of where you put things, but it's not very efficient if you can only have 1 "layer" on the wall.

Nice solution

 

[curryjunkie]

View attachment 173528 View attachment 173529
I've been designing a series of French cleat workshop storage solutions. All 3mm mdf/ply based, the same width, with their own French cleat. This allows me to stack them on each other when appropriate. It seems to be solving the main grip I have with French cleat storage, in that it's very flexible in terms of where you put things, but it's not very efficient if you can only have 1 "layer" on the wall.

hope thats strong glue holding them together!

 

[SimonStevensCanes]

hope thats strong glue holding them together!

how so? It's just ca. For the most part it's the tabs and slots holding it together, the glue mostly just keeps the mechanical components in place.

 

[supertom44]

Couple of quick projects for some kitchen organisation.

First up a spice rack, not my design, 6mm walnut mdf, happy with how it turned out considering the time invested.

Might go for something more traditional and space saving with holes for the jars to slot in and mount it on the wall.

Next up I needed some sort of organisation for various cooking oils, this was done using boxes.py, I'd have loved to make the compartment walls taller but at this size I could just about squeeze all the parts on one sheet.


Next time I think I'll go for similar tierd structure like the spice rack to make things easier to grab.

 

[paulrbarnard]

Just finished off an unusual project.
I have a Goat Tool multitool that has interchangeable tools. It’s real nice and can be configured without a blade or options for locking and non locking.
It also came with a bit holder for screw driver bits which is really useful. For a pocket tool a load of loose bits is a bit of a problem so I found the Leatherman BitKit which has thin bits in a nice thin clip to store them. The bits work with a standard bit holder but I figured I could make the holder thinner to let me add another too at the same time.

I used Fusion to draw up the new bit holder. Goat Tool actually make CAD templates available a you can create your own tools. Now this needed to be metal and I have no way of printing that myself so I uploaded the cad file to PCBWay who are an online PCB manufacturer from China who also do 3D printing and CNC. I elected to get the bit holder printed in Stainless steel. The also do aluminium and titanium.

The turn around time was two weeks and the cost a very reasonable, for a 100% custom one off part, £20 including the shipping. I could have had multiples for very little extra. I had no idea if the equality would be any good so only bought the one.

I finished it off this morning by press fitting the 5mm x 1mm magnet that retains the driver bit.

Very pleased with the result.

Thingiverse link if anyone has a goat tool and want to do the same Goat Tool Leatherman Bit Kit adaptor by paulrbarnard