Ok let’s finally make use of that wood CNC router.
Materials:
- Plank of maple from homedepot that costs to much
- Mostly functional CNC machine.
- Walnut that someone gave you.
Cut strips of maple down to size on the table saw, then do an edge glue up and clamp the board together.
Mike’s Tips*
When you glue up, let the excess harden a bit before wiping it
Don’t wipe wet, otherwise it won’t let the oil into the wood where you wiped the glue in. You should have to lightly scrape the excess. About 1hr with titebond3, shorter with 2.
While the glue up happens its time to get some dogs. I find these ones to be quite good girls.
Now we have some dogs we just need some vectors of some dogs.
www.vecteezy.com/free-vector/dachshund
Once downloaded we need to edit the vector to make sure that the cutting bit that we use can both cut the outline and inline of the shapes. This means we need to make sure the shapes don’t have a corner radius larger than the diameter of our cutter. Draw a circle (seen in red) the size of your cutter for me this is 3.175mm then use this as a reference to fix all your corners.
Next save as a DXF. Then Import into Fusion360
Extrude shape and cutout in a board, Save to two separate bodies.
2D contour cutout of walnut with tabs.
Plain or sand your Maple flat enough, not to final thickness.
2D contour cut into your maple then test fit your shapes into the board.
if they don’t fit run the path again without tabs this time and set your Axial stock to leave -0.5mm this will clean up the edges and give it some more room to fit.
Always Test fit!
Glue together, cover the walnut shapes in glue around the edges. Then use a hammer and wooden block to gently coerce the two pieces together.
Once dry its time to flatten it using the thickness sander to flatten the board.
Once flat use an orbital sander to make it smooth I used 100grit then finished with 220grit sanding pads.
Last thing to do is to oil the board for use. I use Ikea SKYDD cutting board oil because its what I have in my house.
We’re done! Good Job!
