I’ve been a member of the Minnesota Woodworkers Guild for a number of years now. Recently they started the idea of special interest groups, within the guild. These are small groups, limited in size, that have a more specific focus in a particular area. I joined one around CNC machines in the workshop.
We’ve had a few meetings already, and last month one of the other members brought their small CNC machine to demo. For this month (March) I volunteered to host at my shop so others could see a Carbide3D machine, its setup, software, and my workflow.
Unfortunately one of the members who planned to attend was unable to make it due to changing circumstances at the last minute. He suggested perhaps we could share some pictures, so I thought I’d just make it a formal blog I could share.
When I had volunteered to host, I made mention to not knock on the front door, as the meeting time is when we start the bedtime routine for our son. I joked that I’d have to use my CNC to make a sign for the CNC meet. Well, in getting prepared to host and having a few sample projects lined up, one of the things I decided to do was actually make that sign. I guess I wasn’t joking as much as I thought!
The setup that I have for my Shapeoko 3XL machine includes an enclosure I built with storage underneath it. The enclosure was intended to help with the dust/debris and contain some of the noise (back when it used a router, mainly). The drawer holds all the bits and endmills, wrenches, stock hold downs, and various accessories of that nature. Underneath the drawer is mainly just material storage for offcuts or things that I’ve used on the CNC before.
The lower left has a bank of 4 switched outlets with an extension that runs out the back and plugs in to the wall outlet. The 4 switches control the CNC power, the router/spindle power, the lights in the enclosure, and the power to the automatic vacuum sensor (if I ever wanted to control the vacuum manually instead). It’s also where the spindle VFD/control box is located, as well as a few taller pieces of stock and the rest of the CNC accessories or old parts tucked behind that.
The doors of the enclosure are on offset hinges, so they can open completely and be out of the way of the machine, even if not opened beyond 90 degrees. This was something I considered in case I ever had to take the machine out for maintenance, which I’ve only done once in 6 years.
The front half of the top is also hinged so it can flip up when I’m loading and unloading the CNC. It’s a lot nicer than having to stoop under it all the time. There are also a set of under cabinet lights installed in the top to make sure I can see what I’m doing when setting things up.
My machine is a Carbide3D Shapeoko 3XL with a few upgrades. The cutting area is officially 16″x33″, but I usually say it’s more in the range of 13-1/2″x33″ since part of that 16″ depth requires the stock to be hanging off the front of the machine. I’ve had it for about 6 years now.
I’ve got 3/4″ MDF waste board on top of the factory waste board, with T-track in between it. The spacing comes out to about 4″ between t-track, which lets me use my shop made hold downs, or t-bolts for fixtures. I also added their Bit-Setter (front right corner of the machine) which means I don’t have to re-zero the machine between bit changes, it does that automatically.
In the waste board, I used a v-bit to carve a 1″x1″ grid, which helps aligning things (especially fixtures) a lot easier.
The other main set of upgrades was the Z-Plus upgrade, and the Carbide3D VFD controlled spindle, which was a huge upgrade. The Z-Plus is a heavier duty screw driven z-axis carriage that uses linear rails instead of the v-wheels and belt drive that it came with. With the VFD spindle upgrade, it can now be fully controlled by the software, so it will start and stop the spindle as well as set the speed. This makes it really nice, especially with a sensor that will automatically turn on and off the vacuum along with it. Added bonus is that the spindle is a lot quieter than the screaming palm router it used to use.
Rounding out the CNC setup, I have a Dust Cobra hooked up to it, that passes through the top and to the dust boot on the spindle. It really helps control the debris, and it’s HEPA rated, which was important to me in general, but especially when I do non-woodworking things like acrylic.
The first demo project we tackled was showing some fixturing (I didn’t take this picture until later, so ignore the fact that it’s sitting on top of something else). I also collect combination planes, and I’ve come up with some basic stands that I use to display them. This fixture was something I created when I was making a new set of those display stands. I would clamp the fixture to the CNC bed, then I can load up these 4 pieces to cut the diagonal grooves. This would likely require some sort of jig to do on the router table, table saw, or radial arm saw safely anyway, so the CNC seemed like a good fit. Also, I’ve now made 24 of them, so I could be assembling the first run as the next batch is running.
I also like to add notes to my fixtures. Here I’m indicating where I zero off of when I run the job. I can use the bit-zero accessory to find the corner. I only need to do this once when I initially set it up, then I can just keep running the same job over and over without having to re-zero. In one of the pockets I wrote what it was for, and what size the pieces needed to be to fit in it. Also noting which edge was the front.
We also looked at simple sliding lid boxes. These were some boxes I’ve made that were done all on the CNC with the exception of the finger pull (and assembly, obviously). I was showing the parametric nature of Fusion360, where I could use the same file and just change some parameters to get a different sized box. This was a software/design demo, as we didn’t make one during the meet.
Here’s a box I left the front end off of, to see the construction. Basically just grooves, rabbets, and a stopped rabbet. Pretty simple, but that was sort of the point.
We also ran a demo of making dished parts mainly to show a roughing pass and a finishing pass. After everyone left, I ran two more on the sample board to grab these pictures. The center shows what it looks like after the roughing pass. I use a 1/4″ roughing bit to quickly remove the waste, and then come back in with a 1/4″ core box bit.
This was the finished one we ran during the meeting, for comparison. I used a 0.01″ stepover on the finishing pass, so it requires very little sanding.
This wasn’t a demo that we ran, but it was something I’m currently working on that showed more of how I use the CNC with fixtures.
I like using pink insulation foam as a prototyping material to test parts and fixtures. Work out the kinks when you can run the machine basically full speed, and in cheap material.
This is a saw handle that I cut out on the CNC, then made a fixture to hold it for the back side operations. That let me set it up to cut the pockets for the saw bolts and medallion on one side before cutting it out, then clamp it in the fixture to cut the pockets for the saw nuts on the other side. Works pretty well, so I’ll likely be making the actual handle in the near future.
The group also chatted about quite a few various topics as well, and there were some other odds and ends that I had to share; mainly other things I’ve used the CNC for in the past and still had around.
Looking forward to the meet next month, as we were talking about potentially trying to come up with an idea for a group project where we could all contribute and use as an avenue to learn or try some new things.
Thanks for reading!
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