Hey guys, how's it going? Today I'm going to be showing you how I made this awesome
aluminum inlay on a walnut floor all using the Stepcraft M.1000 CNC machine.
There's a lot of really cool parts that go into this. And I can't wait for you guys to see that.
So definitely, stick around to see how we did it.
It's time to get started on a new project here doing something you probably have not seen before.
We’re using the Stepcraft M.1000 CNC machine to create an aluminum inlay into a walnut floor.
We're going through here and cutting through the aluminum. And that will
inlay into the floor after we cut the pockets into the floor essentially like this.
We'll get to more of that satisfying goodness here in just a little bit.
So, we're using the 51454-Z 1/8" Spiral 'O' Flute Up-Cut bit with the ZrN Coating to cut through
this aluminum. I have a misting system setup on the Stepcraft M.1000. And as you can see there,
some of my hold down method, which we'll show you here in just a little bit
failed me in that one particular spot and I'll explain why. We're going through here in four
passes to get through all of the aluminum. And then we'll just get that sucked off and you can
see that that popped right off. Essentially, that's because I'm using the blue tape method.
So, I'm using painters tape on both sides of the material.
I have Oramask set down on the Wasteboard of the M.1000. That way I don't get any
of that misting fluid on the MDF. So, then we'll just use some painters tape
on the backside of the aluminum material. Then, I'll use some Starbond Adhesive CA glue with some
accelerator to attach my material. So, we'll put all of the CA glue all over the aluminum
piece. And as you can see as we go here, I missed the one spot that that middle of the A was on.
But the rest of it absolutely held down perfectly. And it's a really easy way to hold down thin
materials like this aluminum and do so very securely. You just make sure that you spread the
Super Glue around a little bit better. And you'll make sure that everything holds in place.
As you can see, it's nice and tight. So, we can get back to showing you how we're
actually cutting everything. So, we got all of this stuff cut out with the 1/8" bit and
we'll get switched out for the 51402-Z ¼" Spiral 'O' Flute Up-Cut bit to go through and cut this
in two passes. So, all of the rest of the letters have pretty wide details
where the inside of the A and the Y had some spots that I wanted to use an 1/8" bit on.
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Also, don't forget to follow us on Instagram @toolstoday. So, we're going to go through
here with the ½" bit and cut the rest of these letters out. While these bits are designed to
dry cut aluminum, they will also work with the misting system. The misting system will increase
the longevity of the tool as well as provide a higher quality cut, because it keeps everything
cool. The number one enemy of any sort of cutting tool is heat. And that misting system basically
just helps evacuate those chips with some of the compressed air that's fed through it, as well as
that liquid that is put on there to help lubricate everything and keep everything nice and cool.
So, we're going to go through here and cut out the rest of the design. And then we'll go and cut all
of the individual letters as well. I think it's super satisfying to see the way that the chips
come off of the bit and how the chips also change direction when the bit does. Once everything is
done cutting, we're able to just pull all of those up and everything pulls off really nice
and cleanly, leaving all the stuff that we do not need as part of our design left behind.
So now that everything is pulled up, we can get the Oramask removed. And this was insanely
satisfying, a super easy way to clean that up. All of the mess went along with it. So that was nice
to see. You can see the really nice clean cuts that we're getting here through that aluminum.
And it definitely did a great job with that. And I couldn't be happier with those results.
So now that the aluminum portion of this project is done, I’ll remove the wasteboard off of the
machine, and then just get that set aside. We'll take it off of the stand itself.
We're going to get it set up so that we can carve on the floor.
These are the vacuum rails that attach to the machine
using a couple of screws through the T-Slots that are on the bottom of the machine. We'll just get
those inserted and then insert them into each one of the sides and tighten everything down.
Then, we'll get it all moved over into the shop after we set the center point of exactly where we
want this logo to be. So, we got everything set down there. And I used a block of wood to help
square everything up to the piece of floor that we have. And we'll use these vacuum hoses that
come with it to attach to a vacuum so that we can suck it directly down to the floor.
Using the Fein Turbo II Vacuum, we're able to get everything sucked down and this
is going absolutely nowhere. I was really impressed with how well this vacuum works.
I would actually pull up the entire floor before I actually got the CNC to lift off of it. So,
I use a V bit to mark the center as it comes to a perfect point and it's a lot easier to
mark that center location. Then, I use the Auto Tool Changer to pick up the 46202-K
¼" Down-Cut bit to do the majority of the waste removal. So, this is going to
go through and leave a nice clean cut on the top surface of the material as we're
going through the walnut laminate flooring and it does a nice job leaving clean cuts.
So, the Down-Cut action of the bit forces those fibers down. So that way you have a clean top
surface instead of using something like an Up-Cut bit where you're going to end up with
frays along the top surface. So, it's going to go through here and do the entire outline and
all of the letters itself. You can see here; it is stuck to the floor. It's pretty amazing
to see. I've never seen something like this before. So, I definitely think it's a really,
really cool feature. And something that not a lot of CNCs are able to do.
So, we're going to go and get all of those cut, the A and the Y as we did with the aluminum.
We're going to come back and use a 1/8" bit to clean up some of those finer details. So,
we'll use the Auto Tool Changer again and get that switched out for the 46200-K, 1/8" Down-Cut bit to
come back and clean up those edges to get a nice, tighter radius than we can get with that ¼" bit.
So, it's just going to run around that profile one time just to make those a little bit sharper.
We'll get everything all vacuumed off. And that was quite the process and then get the CNC removed
off and you can see what that logo looks like before we get everything glued in.
So, using some Starbond Adhesive Thick CA Glue, we're going to get all of those letters inserted.
This is insanely satisfying to see all these letters fitting in here absolutely perfectly.
I used a -0.002" pocket allowance to get this nice tight fitting and they absolutely fit perfectly.
So, I was really happy to see that the way everything worked here. This nice,
tight fit will allow me to use the Super Glue just to kind of hold things in place.
The pocket will actually hold everything in place long term,
but the Super Glue just makes sure that it stays down just a little bit.
So, we got everything inserted and the final one was this outline. I was pretty nervous making sure
that this was going to fit, but it fit perfectly. This is the one that everything could have gone
wrong on as I had five separate locations that I was trying to get everything to fit into. And it
did work just the way that I had intended. And I'm super happy with the way that everything
turned out. So, you can see as we walk into the office, we now have a nice walnut pad with the
Tools Today logo inlaid in it and I couldn't be happier with the way that everything turned out.
This was something that was completely new and different for me. So, I learned a lot
throughout the process and definitely will take that into future projects. But anyways,
that's going to do it for this one. We hope that you guys enjoyed this project and found
some of this information a little bit useful. But anyways, we would love to hear what you
guys think down in the comments. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it. Have a great day, everybody.
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