[CarveOne]

Ok guys, the corrected replacement sign has been cut and a front and rear view follows. I didn't round-over the edges or sand anything before taking the photos. I'll do that sometime tomorrow when/if I get the chance.

CarveOne

Update: The round-over and sanding has been completed on this one, plus two holes have been drilled for eye screws that the sign will be hung under the mail box post with. Two matching holes for eye screws were drilled in the new mail box post also.

[CarveOne]

Both sides of the sign has been rounded-over and sanded. I also stained one side and then sanded the surface to remove any bleed-overs and brush goofs. When working with a porous grained wood like oak it will happen, even with nerves as good as a surgeon's. (I never was a surgeon)

CarveOne

[CarveOne]

The second side has been stained. Each side took a little less than 2 hours. I put the brush I'm using in the photo to show how small it is. There are maybe 5 or 6 hairs in it that come to a fine point. Too much stain on the brush and it bleeds everywhere it isn't supposed to.

It looks a little rough in places after staining, but sanding with 80 grit sandpaper and smoothing with 320 grit sandpaper sharpens the lettering. I do this even before the stain has dried, then vacuum up the dust, which has absorbed some of the excess stain. It will dry overnight and I'll apply polyurethane tomorrow and let it dry in the sun.

CarveOne

[CarveOne]

The mail box post and sign are finished, and is ready to set into the ground. It will be installed tomorrow. The original mail box will then be transferred to the new post.

CarveOne

[TrickyCNC]

It does look good.

btw, that corner block should be on top if its on that side

[CarveOne]

Thanks!

I put it there first and then decided to move it to the lower position. I installed it today. My cousin was not at home at the time I installed it but said later that was really happy with it. She had no idea what it was going to look like until she got home and saw it.

She wants to see the next project being cut, whatever that will be.

CarveOne

[PaulRowntree]

She wants to see the next project being cut, whatever that will be.

CarveOne

A new revenue opportunity ... charging admission to watch these things cut!
Tom Sawyer would like that idea.

[CarveOne]

A new revenue opportunity ... charging admission to watch these things cut!
Tom Sawyer would like that idea.

Now why didn't I think of that already? All of the demos and projects so far have been free to anyone who can stand to listen to my "CNC blah, blah, blah, CNC" geek speak. They always like the results but don't have a clue about what I'm talking about. I'm sure you know the routine.

My cousin has seen me jog the machines around, but she wants to watch something being cut. As soon as I get time to set up the Stargate ring I'll see if she can come over long enough to watch it cut. Hopefully it will be this week.

CarveOne

[CarveOne]

Thanks!

I put it there first and then decided to move it to the lower position. I installed it today. My cousin was not at home at the time I installed it but said later that was really happy with it. She had no idea what it was going to look like until she got home and saw it.

She wants to see the next project being cut, whatever that will be.

CarveOne

?????

[revwarguy]

As soon as I get time to set up the Stargate ring I'll see if she can come over long enough to watch it cut.
CarveOne

Ok, I'll bite - where does one get a dxf for the Stargate ring?

And how does one keep all that swirly water that shoots out of it from getting all over the shop?

[CarveOne]

Ok, I'll bite - where does one get a dxf for the Stargate ring?

And how does one keep all that swirly water that shoots out of it from getting all over the shop?

Go over to the Vectric forums, look in the Vcarve Pro/General forum. They call it Stargate Aquagate. Scroll down until you find it or use the search tool. The file is attached to one of the posts. It has some errors in it but they are easy to correct with node editing after you load it into VCP. Look for places where vectors cross each other when they should be parallel to each other. It causes the dxf to have large circle vectors all over the screen. There may be a corrected version posted by now. It's a 2Mb file.

I plan to plug the hole in the gate with a piece of mirror glass. I have set up a 23" diameter .crv file that has a 13-5/8" pocket in the middle for the mirror. If you Google Stargate SG1 you may find an image of the aqua fill that can be used to create the water texture for carving, and then paint it to look like water. It's easier for me to make a mirror frame of the gate, or print the blue water image and put it behind glass. I'm just going to make one for the shop wall using my smaller steel machine as a first test cut for the machine.

CarveOne

[CarveOne]

I rode with "Skydiver guy" down to the Fort Bragg, NC area today and we were looking to get a time slot to do some flying in this Paraclete XP wind tunnel facility. No slots were available due to being booked for the full day, so we watched other people doing it for a while. Then we went over to the Raeford, NC jump zone and that was booked for the day also. Then we went over to the Sun Path Products, Inc. factory and managed to get a tour of the factory where much of the skydiving parachute bags and other accessory items are made. They supply these for sale to civilians and military.

Now for the CNC tie-in. This factory has a 6' wide by 24' long CNC cloth cutting table. Then I noticed the 5' x 12' CNC laser cutter table. I want one of each!!!

CarveOne

[revwarguy]

Go over to the Vectric forums, look in the Vcarve Pro/General forum.

Yup, downloaded the latest one there, but its just a raster convert without much work done on it. I resolved the crossed vectors and got the attached carve toolpath from it. Not so good, especially if you are going to go large format.

I did see someone upload a blueprint for the thing that was quite detailed. I am working on a converted version of that which should be expandable to be very large.

How big you gonna go? I'll post a similar image when I get to that point if you want.

[CarveOne]

I inverted mine from yours. In the TV series the glyphs are flat topped. YouTube has a bunch of videos, some good, some not so good, showing the gate and the event horizon effects. A close-up video. I set mine up for 23" using a 90 degree 3/4" diameter V bit. It probably needs to have a flat depth set to about 1/8" deep around the glyphs.

CarveOne

[revwarguy]

Yeah, I was thinking something more along the lines of the attached.

Really does need to be 3D.

[CarveOne]

revwarguy,

The larger V thing in your last post looks more like the TV version with the horizontal lines to each side of it. The inverted triangle within the V also goes over the outer edge of the ring, so I think the triangle should be extended to the outer edge so it can be painted red, or red/orange over the edge.

I would like the glyphs to be raised enough so they stand out nicely, but not as deep as my example shows it. That was why I mentioned setting a flat depth around them.

As it turns out, this will have to be cut on my big machine since the 1/2" shank of my 90 degree cutter doesn't fit the DW611 router on the smaller machine. I have a 3/8" 60 degree cutter with 1/8" shank but the DW611 didn't come with a collet for it. I cut a piece of MDF and have the machine ready to start cutting when my file modifications are finished.

CarveOne

[revwarguy]

Anxious to see how yours cuts at that size. I like the way you did the sides. I hadn't done the part around the V locks since that kind of needs to be done as a whole circle, and I was just trying to do a 60 degree segment. Then, multiply it six times as an array and then put in the star symbols.

Didn't know there was a difference between the TV one and the movie one. I was following the "blueprint" version from the forum.

I was thinking of raising and lowering some of the segments in Aspire and do a 3D cut, but yours looks pretty good.

[CarveOne]

In looking at the images on the web I can see some differences, but I don't know which is which for sure. I like the V locks with the extra details. The file I have is the vector conversion that I just cleaned up. I added an additional circle to get the look you see and that's about all I did to it. It could be cleaned up more though. I just fixed the things that caused problems and used node editing to straighten some lines.

In my simulation image there are two places in the glyph area where there are small cones left where there shouldn't be. One is visible in this view. It is to the right of the bottom center. I couldn't find or select the area to identify an errant pixel that it was trying to cut around. Zooming way in still doesn't show anything that would cause it. Adding a flat level setting to limit the depth may hide it or make it easy to clean off after cutting.

The TV series shows the version you have. With luck I may cut it tomorrow to see what I get in MDF.

CarveOne

[revwarguy]

I got the same image as yours, and it shows a cut time of 3 1/2 hours. This is for the 15 inch version.

Scaling it up to 26 inches got me just under 10 hours, but it made the segment width look out of proportion.

[CarveOne]

I have been reworking my 23" Vcarve Pro files this morning and have the total cut time down to about 1 hour 33 minutes.

The vcarve operation will have a feed rate of 200 ipm and has a flat depth of 0.2". The pocket operation has a feed rate of 200 ipm and a depth of 0.25" and depth of cut is 0.1" per pass. The profile operation has a feed rate of 150 ipm and the depth of cut is 0.2 per pass.

My cousin will be here to watch whatever happens. She's never seen this kind of thing being done before. I'll start the job before 1pm.

CarveOne