Using a CNC in the wood shop

[Andrewg]

I'm the lucky owner of a JazzCNC 600x900, and whilst I have barely scratched the surface of what can be done with it, I am beginning to find ways to incorporate it into my work. Whilst I have of course cut signs, v-carved and made boxes with it, my main interest was to use it in furniture making in important but more subtle ways.

Example is this glass and walnut coffee table. The slab of walnut had warped badly and flattening both sides would have left me with less than 15mm of thickness, so I had abandoned it in a corner. However with the CNC I first flattened the top (so much nicer on my CNC with built in dust collection than using an ad-hoc sledge). However then the operation specifically enabled with CNC was to flip the top and machine just two slots where the frame rails could sit. The rest of the underside could remain rough sawn and unfinished. I then added a dovetail housing as well.

The underframe I made conventionally and machined the matching dovetailed rails on the router table till they were a snug fit. Slab tops could then be slid onto dovetails from either side....and top is held perfectly flat and level whilst able to move with seasonal expansion.

The rebate for the glass was cut with hand router and bushing using the glass to make a template. I feel next level would be to use CNC to probe glass (wrap edge in Alu tape?) and use point cloud to map and cut rebate...anyone done something similar?

[Neale]

Nothing quite so fancy, but this was an interesting project. A neighbour wanted a sign for his new house which was going to have the same name as the one he had lived in as a boy. His father, a wood-turner, had left various lumps of timber including a very well-seasoned piece of yew. He also had an old brass nameplate off the old house which had a cast impression of the wren from the old farthing coin. Could I make a sign out of these, incorporating the wren as a 3D carving?

I did a similar thing to you - skimmed one surface of the yew to freshen up the grain and give a flat surface for carving. The lettering was easy, but I had to modify the Mach3 probing routine to take off the point cloud of the wren using a touch probe, then scale and tweak it to fit. I actually skimmed the surface leaving a raised area for the carving so that the wren is partially recessed, partially proud. I used Vectric Vcarve for all the gcode generation. Came out OK.

[JAZZCNC]

A stunning piece of furniture Andrew pleased your making use of the router in making your furniture.

Regards probing the glass then a better way may be to use scanning software like this. Not contact is required as it works using a camera by looking at contrast to detect the edges. Great for copying templates etc or any 2D shape but not much use for 3D surfaces.

https://www.craftycnc.com/ucamcopy-for-uccnc/

[Andrewg]

Neale, very nice. That ability to make the most of a special bit of wood and add various custom elements is great.

I am thinking that another great application should be the converting of offcuts into something sellable. With conventional woodworking machines you can't really process small or oddly shaped left over pieces, and a lot of handwork quickly makes it uneconomical. So thinking of trying ring boxes, made from any off cut I can rough cut down into 2inch cubes. Needs a bit of though on fixturing, so you can cut the inside and then locate on that to machine the outside......always more ideas than time or skills!

Thanks Jazz for that link, even better than a touch probe. Will need to get a camera mounted then and see if I can master that.

[Ollie78]

Hi

I love the table, I prefer the glass to the now ubiquitous resin river table. Nice bit of walnut.

Ollie

[Kitwn]

A stunning piece of furniture Andrew pleased your making use of the router in making your furniture.

Regards probing the glass then a better way may be to use scanning software like this. Not contact is required as it works using a camera by looking at contrast to detect the edges. Great for copying templates etc or any 2D shape but not much use for 3D surfaces.

https://www.craftycnc.com/ucamcopy-for-uccnc/

Andrew,
I like the table. The next questions have to be 'how did you cut the glass?' and 'what tool do I need to cut glass on my CNC machine?'.

Dean,
That's an interesting bit of software, made me thing of Devmonkey's work for tracking lasers and taught wires. I watched the example videos and the designer is deliberately making life difficult to show what the software can do to find an edge in the image, but the job would have been much simpler if he'd chosen a sensible contrast colour for the background which is what a sensible person would do in practice.

[Andrewg]

Hi
I love the table, I prefer the glass to the now ubiquitous resin river table. Nice bit of walnut.

Me too, epoxy has it's uses but glass is harder wearing classier material. The walnut was an offcut from a chainsaw mill that has been hanging around in the workshop of a while as it had warped so badly it was hard to use. flattening slabs whilst possible with a router sledge is no much easer delegated to the CNC!

Andrew,
I like the table. The next questions have to be 'how did you cut the glass?' and 'what tool do I need to cut glass on my CNC machine?'.

Glass I got cut by my local supplier from a template. They only guarantee +/- 5mm hence the need to fit it once made. I have had an oval coffee table cut from a dxf so they do CNC as well. I don't even like metal swarf in my workshop so not about to start cutting glass, but it is clearly possible.