wood
Working the Plan
I am sort of crossing the line between metal working and wood working with the HB2 project.
Building the machine is very much metal working and electrical. I just throw in the electrical without further classification. Building the HB2 bench was definitely wood working. I could have built a metal bench and many CNC gantry routers are mounted on metal benches. No problem with that. I am a qualified weldor. I believe either platform is serviceable in my environment.
The HB2 will be able to do some work in light (soft) metal. I do not consider HB2 to be a primary metal working machine. That is more suitable for CNC mills. I explained that elsewhere in my ramblings. Projects for the machine will be primarily wood or plastics. That is why I plan on posting projects from this machine over in “Sawdust” in TEDEX. I expect a lot of sawdust!
The HB2 will exceed the cost of my Powermatic 2000 table saw. That makes it important for me to plan on getting substantial use from both machines and perhaps a few more sawdust makers…
I am using my fully employed years to build up the major tools I would like to have when I don’t have to work so hard for income. By then my plan is to have the shop be at least self supporting. Metal or wood chips… I will be there in the middle.
The drawback at the moment is that the projects that can be made on these machines are on hold. The Lord willing, I will have enough time on my biological clock to enjoy my plan. If not, I am having a great time working the start-up plan…
Machining in Wood
Want to see how this was made? Follow this link to my machine shop, click on “Sawdust” at the right end of the menu line and select “Vectric Cut3D” from the drop down menu. I made it myself today (Sunday).
More Fun With CNC
Another carving done with a V bit on the CNC machine. It looks like the very old newspaper pictures that were screened before being printed. It is actually a very similar process. The Vectric software scans the picture for light and dark areas and that in turn sets the depth of the carving. Everything is adjustable by the user (me) so it takes some work to make it look just right.
That is only the computer part. The board is a piece of red oak and that needs some prep before carving. I sanded and applied two coats of shellac and sanded again. The board looks horrible after carving, so it takes more sanding and paint filling to get what you see here. Then a clear finish coat over everything.
The point is that I didn’t just push “GO” and out popped this print. There is a lot of work involved. But it is also a lot of fun to have a unique finished product at the end.
Santa Three
Yes, I am still carving and hand painting. Here is (Sleepy) Santa #3. I am getting a bit better (I think) with each new face. I also decided to play around with Photo Shop and do a cool background edit for this picture. The face is nearly the same size as the other carvings I have posted here.
The background wasn’t really staged for this shot. It is the mantle in the living room. I just walked up and fired off a few close shots with the Sony digital. This Santa is leaning against a very colorful glass Santa like the old fashioned glass tree ornaments… only much larger. So as not to let the background detract from the carving I decided to play a bit.
Gloria didn’t want these carvings to look “spiffy new” so there is a little intentional “aging” and debris to make it look like its been hanging around for quite awhile. It really doesn’t show up to much in this photo.
I hope you enjoy a Merry Christmas! ~ Dan’l
‘Tis The Season
This is my second carving of the Christmas Santa’s. This fellow has a fancier beard. The picture to the right is the finished and painted carving. It looks like it is a part of the page. (It’s the one in the middle!) You can can see I made it a bit bigger than the pattern. The second picture is the same background and was made just after I finished the wood carving work. I wasn’t real happy with the beard lines in the Santa with Christmas Tree carving so for this one I connected up the high speed rotary carving tool I bought last year. It was perfect for carving the lines. A little more practice with my CMT hands and I can start to do finer lines. This looks pretty good though. These are not kits, I started with only the drawing you see in the picture. I band-saw a 3/4 inch slab of Basswood off a big block I bought, smooth it up and lay out (trace) the carving. I think it is a great way to get started in wood carving.