lto
09-17-2004, 08:50 AM
Seeing the artistic bent of shopbotters brought an idea to mind. Yesterday at work, a customer came in asking about the possibility of embossing a design on pew ends. They CNC route some at this time, which works fine except for the time and sanding required to do 100 repeats. If someone has a design they would like to reproduce in sufficient volumne embossing is a great way to go as it allows detail that would require numerous tool changes. There is also no sanding required afterward. The tooling could be partially produced from your shopbot files reducing the time/cost of the die. I see many possibilitys where someone could capitalise on an idea after it has been proven on the shopbot. We emboss into solid wood, limited to approximatly 1/4" depth. In some other materials such as MDF this can be greatly increased.