Hey guys. How's it going? Welcome back to the vlog. We
are working on the door sign for my son's room. We announced in the last video that
we are having a son on April 4th. So we have my daughter Katie, and then we will have him.
We are super excited -- can't wait to meet him. But we need to work on this door sign to get
that ready to go for him. So anyways we cut the test pieces out on the last video;
did all of the design work; so if you haven't seen that definitely check that out right up here.
Today we're going to be cutting everything out; getting things painted; and going from there.
We need to start by cutting down the plywood that we're going to be using. If there's anything in
this video that you're seeing that you're interested in, there's links to everything
down in the description. So definitely check that out. Without further ado let's get started.
I’m going to be using some X-Fasten Brand Double-Sided Tape to hold everything down. Put
more tape in the areas where I have the letters to make sure that nothing moves. Then get it
stuck down to the Stepcraft M.700 CNC machine. This is a really nice desktop size CNC and
it also has a auto tool changer built into it which like I said before most of
the desktop machines don't have that at all. So we'll open up our files and get going on
cutting everything out. So one of the things that I really like is the preview that it gives here,
that way I can line everything up specifically for filming. It makes things a lot easier.
So we're going through getting all of the camera stuff set up and then we'll get to cutting with
the eighth-inch compression bit. So I always do a little run of showing the bit spinning up,
and then move the camera to position it over where everything's going to get cut.
So I’m using some compressed air, you can see up in the top left corner,
just to blow all of the sawdust out of there, that way you can actually see the cut that it's making.
This compression bit leaves a clean top and bottom surface, since it has a up cut portion
and down cut portion built into the bit. So if I didn't use the compressor that's
what all the shots would look like, since this is a true spindle not just
a router that has a fan that blows out the bottom. So now we'll get the cuts done on the circle part.
I actually left some tabs in here I’m not quite sure why I did that. I definitely didn't need to
because the double sided tape holds down so well. So this is going through in two passes at
a quarter-inch depth per pass. And I’ll just get these sawdust all vacuumed off.
Just got all the letters cut out and we did all that testing with the point rounder for
a bit and that was because I was going to paint everything. I’m now thinking I’m going to stain
it to get a little bit more natural look with the first name, so I think I’m going
to not do the point round over that way I don't expose more plywood edge than I need to to the
stain on the front side to get a different look. So I’m going to pull these off the CNC now. We'll
get everything stained and kind of go from there. So you can see the chip out free edge left from
the compression bit since it has the up and down cut portion even through this birch plywood which
definitely wants to chip out really bad. So we're gonna get the CNC all cleaned up and get it ready
to go for the next piece and this is just some eighth-inch Baltic birch plywood. I’m going to
sand it before doing everything else, that way I have a smooth side. It's a lot easier to sand the
whole piece than it is to sand individual pieces. I went through on my design and marked out some
locations here where I know I need tape so that way I don't have to use tabs on anything
in the double-sided table just hold everything down in place.
So this is one of those instances where filming takes a whole lot longer. So this would ordinarily
have two tool paths as I have a 1/16 inch bit and a 1/8 inch bit that I’m working with,
but instead I have eight tool paths and that is so that I can get different shots of all of
these and make sure that I get all of the camera angles and everything like that that I need. So
anyways let's head out and get this all cut. So we'll drop off the eighth-inch compression
bit and pick up the 1/16 inch down cut bit. This bit leaves a really small kerf and can get some
really fine detail. So we'll get the camera and everything all set up and get to cutting.
You can see here at one point the “I” pops out there, the dot of the eye pops out,
and I made sure to grab that. That way it didn't blow it away or anything like that
when doing all of the other cuts. So we did the pockets first and then the profile
cuts, and we can just get everything vacuumed off. So we're going through here these are some really
small trees and these are pretty fine details. The 1/16 inch bit is going through here in two passes.
I generally go one time the diameter of the bit in depth per pass, so with
eighth inch plywood we'll do it in two passes. It's always super satisfying to see the sawdust
all removed to reveal the design. So we cut out all of the pieces needed with the 1/16 inch bit.
We'll get that vacuumed off and then drop that off and pick up the eighth inch down cut bit.
And I could definitely do the same thing with the 1/16 inch bit and do all of the design with that,
but with the auto tool changer it allows me to use tools for efficiency's sake, not necessarily
just because I don't want to change out the tools, so it's a really nice feature to have.
So with this one I can go through in a single pass and cut out the entire design. It also
moves a little bit faster than the 1/16 inch bit, at 80 inches per minute instead of
40. So we can get all of the other pieces all cut out. I think it's kind of interesting to watch
myself filming something and making sure that the camera is looking at what I need it to look at to
get the shot that we need. So we can get that vacuumed off again and move the camera out of
the way so that we can pull all of this up. So this double-sided tape held a little bit
too well. I don't use the double-sided tape often so I always forget how strong it is.
So after those pieces are cut you can kind of see what this is going to begin to look like these
all get painted the different layers so it'll be a really nice contrast. This one, however,
did not work out. Double-sided tape stuck too well and it's breaking all over the place.
So I’m going to take that as an opportunity to change things up a bit, to run up to
my storage unit real quick. I’ve got a ton of wood there, a bunch of offcuts from previous
projects, and pick up some hardwood and we'll make that out of hardwood.
So we got our entire bucket of scraps here. These might work. This cherry might work. And then I’ve
got these pieces over here. And I’m thinking if I’m going to do the one I might as well do
Eli too, so I think I’m going to take this piece of spalted maple, maybe cut his name out of that.
But I’m feeling justified for saving all of these small scraps, because I never thought
that I would actually use them but here we are actually using them. I’m still going to
use double-sided tape to hold everything down. I’m going to do a what's called a onion skinning
method. We'll talk about that more here in a second, but basically we'll cut down not all
the way through and then use the drum sander to do the rest. So let's get these put up on the CNC.
So I didn't use too much tape on these this time, because I knew how well it held down.
So I’m getting the camera and everything all set up. We'll change out for the 1/16 inch down cut
again and we'll do the first piece. This is going to be a bear design. So I figured if I
was going to do the last name I might as well do the bear. This also serves as a nice test
to make sure that I have my depth of cut set correctly. And you can see that I had
it a little bit too low. That piece just popped right out. That's not what we want.
We wanted a little bit of material left to do the onion skinning. So I set the z / zero height
up just a tiny bit and it worked out really well on the full name. So everything held down
really really nicely. It didn't go all the way through. So we can pull that up and go over to the
drum sander to get everything ran through there. So with the drum sander you can take off really
really small amounts. I removed the dot of the “I” because I didn't want that to get sucked up.
So we're going through in multiple passes and just going down a tiny bit at a time.
That way we don't have any issues. And if this was made out of plywood
again that definitely would have broken but luckily the hardwood saved me there and it
turned out great. So we'll get the other piece of spalted maple stuck down, switch back out
for the eighth inch compression bit and I did a little bit of a filming trick there;
filmed both of those at the same time. That way I didn't have to set up the camera more than once.
So we're gonna go through and do this in three passes. This is almost three
quarters of an inch thick, and it definitely did a nice job through that spalted maple.
The eighth inch compression bit, like I said before, I do in quarter inch depth
of pass and it worked out really well. So now I had the opportunity to use the
point round over bit that we did all the testing on and you can see how it works.
It basically just leaves a nice little round over on that edge, breaks the edge,
very similar to like hand sanding or anything like that, but with these small pieces it's always nice
to be able to do that on the CNC machine. We'll get that removed from the CNC and do
the same thing on the drum sander, just going down in multiple passes
until we break through that onion skin that is left and you can see it just pops right out.
So those are ready to go and I really like the look of that spalted maple.
Just about everything in the shop is on wheels so I can move that out of the way easily
and set up the router table with the mini flush trim bit just to flush trim up those tabs.
You can certainly use a larger flush trim bit but I like this one because it is smaller
and always leaves a smooth finish on tabs. So everything on the sign is now cut out really
happy with the way that that looks. I’m glad that there was the mistake that led to using the
hardwood. I think that'll definitely be a really nice add to the sign. I think it'll look great.
So that's going to do it for this vlog here. We will get to painting everything,
get everything stained, and get the sign fully assembled in the next one, and get the video
edited as well, and get that out to you guys. So anyways hopefully you guys enjoyed this video.
Definitely drop a comment down below if there's anything you would like to see in
these vlogs. If you have any questions at all we would certainly be happy to answer any of those.
Remember the links to everything used here are in the description, so definitely check that out.
Be sure to subscribe and check out this video right here if you want some more great content. So
anyways we'll catch you guys back out here on the next one. Have a great day everybody.