[CarveOne]

C1, does your website contribute to your bandwidth usage?

Not unless I upload very large files to it too often. I have a rolling 7.5Gb usage limit per month. Normally it isn't a problem. When Dish Network upgraded my WildBlue satellite service 512Kb download speed to 3Mb "free" just before Christmas it suddenly jumped to a much higher level of 87% from a typical 50% usage level. It's down to 77% right now, but it's because I have all but ceased to use the internet by disconnecting the computer LAN cable from my home network when I don't need to use the internet. I do it for a few minutes each morning and evening and then disconnect again.

I'm about ready to drop them completely and sign up for the new WildBlue Exede service directly through WildBlue.

[CarveOne]

I'm working on a new Paradise box. This time it's for a nephew's wife that has a birthday coming up on February 2nd. I started with the files from a previous Pbox that I made last year with this same name on it and changed it into the Celtic rope elliptical border. The top panel was cut, sanded, and stained this afternoon. No polyurethane has been applied to the cut and stained areas yet. That will be done later this evening.

The Pbox bottom panel was cut and finished this morning and I'll be working on the other panels during this week. Hoping to complete it over next weekend.

I have the Celtic knot 2' x 3' residential sign ready to cut sometime this week also.

I made this Purple Heart medal plaque over the past few days to donate to the local Veterans Center. If they want the medal to be hand painted white, blue, and gold like a real medal I'll do it for them.

A neighbor called yesterday and asked for some help with making and installing a fancy wooden instrument panel for a new instrument gauge package that he wants to upgrade to in his T-bucket hot rod. We'll hit all my wood suppliers in Raleigh one day this week to find something he likes well enough to use.

[LouF]

They look good C1 I like the purple heart..

Lou

[WoodSpinner]

I really like your work, especially that basket weave background on the paradise box lid, did you model that yourself?

John

[CarveOne]

I really like your work, especially that basket weave background on the paradise box lid, did you model that yourself?

John

Yes, I did it in Aspire as one of my first modeling efforts. Modeling it was easy enough, but I still have trouble getting the height of the model and the position in the material like I want it when I make a new model for something like the Celtic knots.

Somewhere back in this build thread when I made the Marianna Paradise box is a DXF file of the vectors I used. That was the first time I made a box with it.

[CarveOne]

I cut the 2' x 3' sign yesterday and it came out fine. I was having anxiety attacks hoping that I didn't mess up a software setting or forget to do any of the manual operations. The oak block has a lot of time invested in it and is worth about $100 material cost if I turned it into fancy firewood and have to do it again.

I have great respect for professional sign makers whose work I have seen here and on the Vectric site. It just isn't something I want to do on a full time basis.

Now to paint carved areas black and finish off the surfaces. If they let me post a photo of it I will.

[LouF]

I cut the 2' x 3' sign yesterday and it came out fine. I was having anxiety attacks hoping that I didn't mess up a software setting or forget to do any of the manual operations. The oak block has a lot of time invested in it and is worth about $100 material cost if I turned it into fancy firewood and have to do it again.

I have great respect for professional sign makers whose work I have seen here and on the Vectric site. It just isn't something I want to do on a full time basis.

Now to paint carved areas black and finish off the surfaces. If they let me post a photo of it I will.

Fancy firewood I have my share..


Lou

[CarveOne]

Fancy firewood I have my share..

Lou

I have two large boxes of red oak cut-offs from the P box builds. They will make a lifetime supply of paint stir sticks if I don't give them away for fireplace starter sticks.

My neighbor friend with the '23 T-bucket hot rod and I went to my usual wood stores in Raleigh, NC today. He came back with a really nice piece of padauk (vermillion) that we will use for the wood instrument panel we will make. I'll test some West Systems slow cure epoxy on some scrap pieces of the same wood I have to see if there are any bonding issues from natural oils in the wood. He wants it finished like clear glass and I already know it can be wet sanded and polished to a high gloss after it has had plenty of cure time. I've done it on a couple of single shot target pistol stocks.

I came back with another 4" x 24" x 3/4" piece of highly figured purple heart, three pieces of really nice bocote, a spare Whiteside #1550 V-bit,
and a few more clamps from H. Freight.

[CarveOne]

I finished the latest P box project today, for a nephew's wife. Maybe she'll like it enough to keep it.

There may be a need to build a sturdy shipping crate for it since they live a long way from me.

[Arbo]

Nice P-Box...

[CarveOne]

Nice P-Box...

Thanks Arbo. I still have a few more left on my list for these.

[CarveOne]

In the last couple of days I made this Angel fish puzzle for a friend's 7 year old daughter. The file for it was recently posted in the CNC Zone puzzle forum. The T shaped part with three notches needs to be stretched by 1/4" so that it fully inserts into the notch it is supposed to fit into. It holds the lower front fins onto the body. There were a few extra scale disks left over with no corresponding notches to install them into. Post #3158, below the latest flamefest posts. I used Midwest 6 ply birch aircraft plywood and a 1/16" carbide up spiral cutter. The DXF vectors were scaled so that the notches fit a 0.125" thick sheet.

The 2' x 3' residential sign I have been working on is almost finished. Now waiting for the final coat of finish to dry. The cold weather has made the marine spar varnish very slow to cure. Three+ days per coat per coat, and it's still not fully hardened. I hope it holds up well since it has UV inhibitors in it. My first outdoor sign of any significance.

[LouF]

C1. The fish puzzle looks good I wanted to do a puzzle project maybe one of these days my PC died it is in the shop I will find out what is wrong by Friday..


Lou

[CarveOne]

Many of the puzzle files are available. The butterfly is an easy first project. Just 16 parts. Kids love them, as do some of the adult ladies.

[CarveOne]

I skimmed a few thousandths off of the smaller CNC machine's spoil board in preparation for cutting two molds for laying up fiberglass skins for horizontal stabilizer halves. They have a particular shape symmetrical airfoil, tapered leading and trailing chord, and tapered thickness top to bottom.

The vectors were supplied to me for creating the molds in MDF using Aspire to model it. The finished molds will be sealed with slow cure West Systems epoxy first, then prepped for lay-up with other materials. I'll just make the molds for the project after some ball nose cutters arrive from Precise Bits tomorrow. This is my first effort at making molds for R/C models (or anything else). RenShape 440 material is better, but this is a low budget project and I gain some experience with the MDF at low cost if I completely mess it up.

[kiwibrick]

I skimmed a few thousandths off of the smaller CNC machine's spoil board in preparation for cutting two molds for laying up fiberglass skins for horizontal stabilizer halves. They have a particular shape symmetrical airfoil, tapered leading and trailing chord, and tapered thickness top to bottom.

The vectors were supplied to me for creating the molds in MDF using Aspire to model it. The finished molds will be sealed with slow cure West Systems epoxy first, then prepped for lay-up with other materials. I'll just make the molds for the project after some ball nose cutters arrive from Precise Bits tomorrow. This is my first effort at making molds for R/C models (or anything else). RenShape 440 material is better, but this is a low budget project and I gain some experience with the MDF at low cost if I completely mess it up.

I just recently discovered how to make machinable wax instead of buying it, that might be of use for this type of project, and it's reusable!

[domino11]

Can you share that machinable wax recipe?

[kiwibrick]

How to make Machinable Wax at home!
I think I found it on hackaday.
If you google it there are lots of recipes that vary slightly as well.

[CarveOne]

My 2-1/4" thick 26" x26" blocks of laminated MDF would take a lot of wax, bags, and effort to make these blocks.

Thanks for posting the link though. I'll keep it in mind for a smaller future project.

[CarveOne]

I set up one of the mold blocks in the CNC machine this morning and the new 1/4" ball nose cutters arrived at 10 am. The Z axis travel is adequate and I have figured out how much cutter length can be outside the collet to not run into any hard limits like end of Z axis verticaltravel. With potential bad weather expected today I decided to wait until tomorrow to cut the first mold.

There is a very small gap under the lowest stationary part of the Z axis to the MDF block that just seven sheets of stacked printer paper will pass through without snagging. I hope the block doesn't grow any during cutting.