CNC, Camera, Action!
Hey all, this is Sami from CNC Router Parts.
Today we're touching on engraving and machining acrylic as well as the final assembly of the
clapper baord project.
As always, stay till the end for a walkthrough in Vcarve or Aspire.
I started by cutting down some 1/8" acrylic I had on hand.
The important thing for this project is that you have at least one gloss side and that's
the side that you'll be engraving on.
We'll remove the protective paper from the surface of the acrylic.
I'll take my measuring tape and place it against the material.
Because I know that the router won't be cutting on the top one inch and the bottom one inch
of the material, here I can pilot my holes and screw it to the spoil board.
I'm using a 60 degree v bit.
The design is a single line text so we're engraving an on the line profile tool path.
The line thickness will vary based on your vbit selection and engraving depth.
I'll zero the Z depth using our touchplate.
Then I'll jog the spindle over so that the center of the router bit is at about my corner
and manually zero X and Y in Mach.
Then I'll load my g-code and run the program.
Machining the acrylic can be a little tricky and I find it can be helpful to run the toolpath
twice so that the Vbit will remove any extra chips for you.
I'll switch out the vbit for a 1/4" upspiral also from our starter set.
We'll zero our Z axis with our touchplate, and since we've already zeroed X and Y, we
can just go ahead and run our program for the exterior profile.
I left the tabs relatively thin so they're easy to snap and sand off on the belt sander.
I have these CNC plasma cut brackets I made, cleaned up and painted.
In retrospect, I realize I could have piloted these holes on the CNC but it is easy enough
to mark the center of the holes on the walnut and drill it out by hand.
I'll pilot with an 1/8th inch bit and use the 1/4" bit for the final dimension.
Here I'm using chicago screws which will allow the clapper to swing easily while also keeping
the components in place.
The acrylic has a snug fit and we can glue this in place with epoxy or use a temporary
adhesive if we'd like to have the ability to switch the panel out.
After cleaning out the grooves on the engraving we can use the whiteboard marker to color
the vcarve.
The ink will stick to the areas where the engraving has created texture and then you
can just wipe away any of the marker on the gloss surface.
I find that this technique works really well for creating plaques and signage.
Engraving text or an image and then applying the ink or paint which will stick inside the
engraved area and will wipe away easily on the surface of the material.
One of our favorite makers, and we know he's one of yours too, Martin of Wintergatan Wednesdays
also uses a clapper board.
So we just want to say, "Hey!
Thank you for all that you do and we believe in you and the marble machine X.
Thanks everyone for watching stick around for the toolpath set up in vcarve.
We look forward to sharing more projects and processes with you soon.
See you all in the shop!
Welcome to our walkthrough in Vcarve.
I'll open a new file for my acrylic and set the material dimensions.
The thickness is 1/8 inch.
Once I confirm these settings, I can right click and paste my design.
It takes it to the coordinates it was in the previous file.
We can go to our alignment tool and click to center it onto the material.
I'll draw out a few boxes on the top and the bottom I know that these areas are safe to
place my metal fasteners later on.
I'll create a profile tool path and I'll set the depth to 0.05 inches.
The deeper the cut, the thicker the line will be.
For my tool I'll click Select and choose the 60 degree vbit.
And hit okay.
I'll make this an "on the line" tool path and calculate.
You can see I chose to also engrave the border.
This will give the edge a small chamfer and reduce the risk of the acrylic chipping on
the surface.
Now I'll select the border vector again and create a new profile tool path.
I'll set the cut depth to Z which will reference the thickness of the material in the material
set up.
I'll select a tool from the tool library and click okay.
Now I'll click Edit, to alter the settings of the router bit within this particular tool
path rather than changing the original settings of the tool database.
I'll also add a few tabs.
For more on tabs be sure to check out the pro-tip video in the description below.
I'll make these 2D tabs.
I find that they are less likely to chip out on surface of the acrylic than 3D tabs which
tend to work better for wood products.
I'll calculate this tool path and preview it.
Thanks everyone for watching!