(Finally) Joining the Shopbot club

[henrik_o]

I probably shouldn't jinx it by posting before the truck arrives and I can check that everything has survived the loooong transport, but tomorrow noon I should get delivery of my spanking new PRS Alpha 120-60-14.

I've been relatively cool about this so far, but now I'm getting really psyched about being so close to what's so long been in the making.

Wish me luck, and I'll post more tomorrow (knock on wood).

[Towersonline]

Good Luck Henrik. My new PRS should also be here tomorrow. Looks like a busy wekend is in store.

[dubliner]

Congratulations Guys! mine arrived last week. I couldnt sleep the night before. I was like a little kid :-) Dublliner

[henrik_o]

Bill T,

Good luck to you too. Our machines would be like, uh, twins or something.

Neville,

Thanks, but don't say congrats. I want 1) the truck to arrive, 2) check to see that nothing has been damaged in transit. That's all I want right now.

I'll sleep alright, but probably dream a thousand nightmares of alcoholic forklift drivers at faraway terminals.

I'm in Sweden, you know.

[myxpykalix]

Before you are truly a member of the club you must learn the shopbot handshake and pledge....

[henrik_o]

M3,15.471799,80.913412,0.561024
M3,28.812378,75.393173,0.561024
M3,15.471799,71.252993,0.561024
M3,15.471799,71.406333,0.561024
J3,15.471799,71.406333,0.984252
J3,15.471799,80.913412,0.984252
M3,15.471799,80.913412,0.374016
M3,28.812378,75.393173,0.374016
M3,15.471799,71.252993,0.374016
M3,15.471799,71.406333,0.374016
J3,15.471799,71.406333,0.984252
J3,15.471799,80.913412,0.984252
M3,15.471799,80.913412,0.187008
M3,28.812378,75.393173,0.187008
M3,15.471799,71.252993,0.187008
M3,15.471799,71.406333,0.187008
J3,15.471799,71.406333,0.984252
J3,15.471799,80.913412,0.984252
M3,15.471799,80.913412,0.000000
M3,28.812378,75.393173,0.000000
M3,15.471799,71.252993,0.000000
M3,15.471799,71.406333,0.000000

SHELL "C:\Program\ShopBot_Pledge.exe" "/HAIL",4, SYNC

Please?

[dewey_dog]

I,m jeaous my new PRS alpha is shipping this week but I had athroscopic shoulder surgery 3 weeks ago and will not be able to assemble for about 4 more weeks. This is going to be difficult...........hmmm I wonder how many times I will read the manual?

[Brady Watson]

1st you have to write code that doesn't ram the Y axis into the stops...LOL!


You'll be fine...glue & clamp your spoilboard down. If you use screws to fasten it to the support board, you'll be gluing it down later...

-B

[harryball]

That's one wide table...

Robert

[brian_h]

OK, I missed that tip. Mine is screwed down and I'm assuming gluing it down will eliminate that spring-board effect I'm suspecting is occuring. Then when the MDF is thin, you surface it and glue a new one down?

[Towersonline]

Tim, No need to do heavy lifting. When I built the other ShopBots I used a comealong anchored to the Joist above. I initally mount wheels to the legs to help position it during assembly. I then remove the wheels before placing it in service. I have done 5 Shopbots this way. Works great, no strain no pain.

[dubliner]

Henrik ~ as long as it doesn't go through Ireland you should be fine :-). Its an awesome machine, just assembling it was even fun. Oh the hours of enjoyment learning to program it I will have! Brady, can I put you on speed dial :-)

[Brady Watson]

Brian,
That's zactly right...just glue down another sheet AND you totally avoid all of the ups & downs that screwing would cause. If you want a dead-flat spoilboard...glue it. It takes about 1/2 gal of wood glue to do it. Be sure to put the crown of the sheet DOWN and heavy weight in the middle, working your way out to the edges...then clamp the edges overnight.

If you don't have a hoist, a set of horses and a few 2X4s will help you get the table sides secured to the legs. With the PRS tools, make sure you have enough T-nuts in between the legs for the Xmembers before you crank down on the bolts on the legs. Be sure to square the legs to the table sides before cranking them down. After that, the toughest part is getting one or 2 Xmembers bolted up to allow the table to free-stand...then just keep adding stuff to it.

-B

[henrik_o]

It has arrived!

I haven't started building it yet, will start tomorrow, but looking over the parts the quality seems great. One of my employees has prior experience with manufacture/installs in nuclear plants, and he appreciated the build & finish and the aluminium extrusions especially. Only cloud on a sunny day was some missing parts, but a quick phone call to Shopbot and they were on it, now I'll get even better parts than originally ordered and still (hopefully) delivered before the electrician arrives next week.

All in all, I am VERY pleased with what I've seen and tried out (couldn't help doing some test assemblies) so far.

One thing that bothers me a little is that the assembly instructions are for systems with 8" z height, while mine is 14".

I'm sure I'll figure it out, but for example an 8" leg has 8 holes for attaching to the side extrusions, while my 14" Alpha has 16 holes for this purpose. Am I supposed to install bolts in all 16 holes? If so, I may be short on some attachment hardware, though I haven't done a final count.

[Brady Watson]

"Am I supposed to install bolts in all 16 holes?"

Henrik,
You *should* have 4pc 12' long AL extrusions. On your 14" Z machine, they get stacked one on top of the other and 8 bolts go into each extrusion for a total of 16 per leg. This will make sense as you start assembling.


7444
Note that legs config in this pic is not correct...adjusting feet go inboard & leg is on inside of table

-B

[henrik_o]

Brady,

Much obliged for the quick and informative answer.

Yes, two extrusions per side, total of four.

I think I'm short on some bolts -- I've noted down all attachment points on all parts and the corresponding hardware for each, then tallied the bags of hardware (hey, I'm from the land of IKEA, we learn to do this at kindergarten).

No big deal, I have a sufficient supply of tee nuts (being short on those would be a bummer) so I'll just stop by the hardware store tomorrow morning if I can't find some leftover bolts in our inventory.

I did place the side extrusions on top of each other to check for line and norma. Taking a step back, it looks ... manly.


In fact, the whole machine is enormous. It's one thing to see it in pictures or measuring on a floor, when you're standing there and see the components you start to realize just how freaking huge it is.

Btw, there's some plates with hole patterns corresponding to the extrusions that are not mentioned in the manual (afaict), I figure these will go on the outside of the side extrusions in between the legs to secure the top and bottom extrusion to each other.

[Brady Watson]

Henrik,
Speaking of HUGE...When I bought my 1st Bot it was a 5X16' machine and it came on a FULL 53' semi truck. I had 2 of my friends help me unload the parts one by one...just barely able to make the 18' swing of the rails and table sides in the shop. I had them help me get the sides and rails on a set of horses, gave them pizza money and took a week off from work to put it together. Be sure to name your machine...mine is 'Big Bertha'


-B

[dewey_dog]

Bill, There is no lifting at all per the doctors orders. My sub scapula tendon was torn in half and they had to reanchor with a screw. Now I am following doctors orders because if I tear again it will be major surgery.

Brady, how come guys tend to name important machines after women?

Henrik, good luck with your new machine.

[harryball]

Timothy,

Equipment naming was explained to me like this... Machines are like women, you have to respect them, care for them and learn all the little things that make them go... and if you fail to pay attention to them you'll pay for it dearly.

My bot has been dubbed "Bat Bot" for obvious reasons. Not sure what I would have named it otherwise. I read a study once that said if you were buying a used vehicle to always ask the owner if it had a name. Reason being that people tended to take better care of equipment when they had names for the equipment.

If you can't do the lifting... any chance you could bribe someone and direct?

Robert

[dewey_dog]

Robert, I have had several people step up to the task which I am greatful to have friends like that. I am just a very hands on type and assembling is half the fun. I think the bat houses are really cool. You are correct in the explination of the machine......I paid at a young age and learned safty is of utmost importance.

[henrik_o]

Ah, a name. Yes.

<tongue in cheek>
Since the Shopbot room is de facto "behind the green doors" I'd better pre-empt employee humour from wandering into that area and, heaven forbid, name it after some lady of questionable sexual morale.
</cheek>

Seriously though, the wing of the shop where the shopbot room is located is wood/forest themed. The adjacent central hall features a 'wood roots' floor composed of the seven noble woods of Sweden, a central 'stem' by sculptor Mats O and the ceiling is made to represent the crown and branches of a tree. Inside the shopbot room is also some frescos by Vidar Malmsten featuring wood spirits, and a painting of leaves by Ake V Larsson.

As such, her name shall be Embla.

(According to norse myth, Odin found two trunks of drifwood on the barren beach, and from these he fashioned the first man and woman, Ask (ash) and Embla (elm).)

Ok, with that out of the way, now I just need to figure out just how one is supposed to properly baptise a cnc router.


Anyway, this is Embla's new home;


7445

[henrik_o]

And this is the current status of the build.

Everything going well so far (I hope), haven't arrived at the labour intensive parts though.


7446

As an aside, Scott emailed me and the four 8-hole plates mentioned above are supposed to bind together upper and lower side extrusions on 14" systems, from either outside or inside (though inside is usually preferred).

[dubliner]

Embla - possibly so, but seeing her "quarters" I would suggest "Your Royal Highness "

[conceptmachine]

Or maybe Queen Embla

[harryball]

I vote Queen or Princess Embla, either one.

My wife wants to know if you are (or still) married? LOL

Robert

[Brady Watson]

Henrik,
You know the Bot doubles as a dining room table with service for 10, right?


-B

[henrik_o]

Uh, yeah, she's to reside in the former customer reception area, the café compartment specifically, hence the somewhat upscale environs. The espresso machine and lounge furniture was unceremoniously booted out. Most of the actual production areas are perfectly labour masculine with sawdust everywhere. No, really, I promise


I'm blessed with a rather large shop (as stated in the introductionary thread I can't decide if it's a large shop or a small factory), and here's Embla's quarters on the first floor of the facility;


7447

Robert, lol, you can tell her I'm quite safely married to my work.

[harryball]

I'm quite envious, very nice setup. If I ever make it to Sweden I definately would like to come visit.

Robert

[henrik_o]

Brady,

Given the double side extrusions, the dinner party would need some seriously long arms


I will however try to coax a special someone for a small candlelight vigil with wine, I mean, seriously, no gal of class and taste would turn down an invitation to dine at x-zero and x-max, right?


Anyway, beyond the mess of the upstart phase I plan to keep the space tidy and upscale, as much as is possible anyhow. The art definitely stays. We have amiable collaboration with several good schools, and I plan to very prominently feature this wing in their visitations.

Robert,

If you ever strike Europe, you and your entourage is most welcome to stop by. I mean that, on the premises we have two modest apartments for gesellschaft visitors, one of which is almost always empty.

Needless to say, this goes for any botter who should happen to travel these northern parts of Europe. We're an isolated little people up here in the North, and we love visitors.

Timothy N. Sarver,

Thank you for the well wishes, and right back at you: hope that complication mends well. I'm just a little bit into the assembly, but most of the heavy lifting is out of the way, and oh boy, there's a lot of work that doesn't include athletics. At the time of delivery I was a bit at a disadvantage myself, having hurt my right ankle in sports (note to self: taking up tennis at the age of 31 having not played it since the teens is generally an instruction in pedal penalties), but I've been able to participate in most of it so far and will try to complete the non-electrical build this weekend.

It sure is enjoyable, I've been cranking bolts like there's no tomorrow

[billp]

Henrik,
I'd put the espresso machine back in the room for the next couple of weeks.....

[dubliner]

Henrik, your English is better than some of the Americans ~ just ribbing you guys ~ Oh! I'm going to pay for that at the next Jam.

[bill.young]

Hey Henrik,

Don't know how far north you are in Sweden, but there's a new ShopBot in the FabLab in Tromsø, way up in the northern part of Norway.

http://www.fablab.no

Bill

[henrik_o]

Bill P,

Ahh, yeah. Good point. Maybe put in a bed as well.

Neville,

Thanks, but taking five minutes to compose a four sentence post tends to make your language skills seem better than they actually are. I write ok I suppose, but am absolutely horrible at spoken English.

Bill Y,

It's about as far away as Berlin, actually (I'm ~100 km directly west of Stockholm). Still, that's really interesting.

I could add that Vasteras, where I live, is one of the centers of the Robotdalen (Robot Valley) Project. There's a ton of know-how in automation and robotics here since Vasteras also happens to be the home of ABB Robotics, one of the world's largest makers of industrial robots with an installed base of over 100,000.

www.robotdalen.org (http://www.robotdalen.org)

I am going to get involved with this project once I feel confident about my Shopbot and its operation, and we'll see what comes of that.

[henrik_o]

The build is coming along nicely. I think we've been overdoing it to a certain extent, but now everything is set for the electrician's visit tomorrow. We took apart all rail units except those on the gantry, cleaning them and very carefully re-mounting them; this wasn't necessary afaict, but we did it anyway and now we know for sure those units are perfectly aligned in themselves.

Some pics from various stages of the assembly;


7448

Positioning a cross support for sliding into the table. This was taken during the weekend when I was alone at the shop, hence the need for a bit of lifting/positioning workarunds.


7449

Some shiny happy hardware.


7450

Diagonal squaring in progress. We decided against the mallet & protective block approach and opted for a bit more control using interlocking longclamps ('knektar' in Swedish, not sure of English term) positioned against bolts secured in the holes for the deck. This worked very well, giving us 1/10th of a millimeter control over more than 4000 mm.


7451

The chariot in place, beginning to check for square.


7452

Rune, who has been directing and performing most of the assembly, awed by the max-min of the gantry.

So far so good, tomorrow it's time for a spark of life.

[paul_z]

Henrik,

Keep the pictures and posts coming.

I like the clamp idea ... precision force control.

Have someone ready with a camera to take a picture of you when the first project "works". I had a grin "a mile wide".

Paul Z

[henrik_o]

Paul,

The clamp approach worked beautifully. We we're worried of uneven vertical distributed force but couldn't detect any of that.

I'm goin to try to snap a pic of Rune as it all comes together and does a correct cut: I've been wearing a broad smile for almost a whole week so my expression wouldn't say much. He's very discerning, a born mechanic originally from Hedemora where they make some of the finest maritime diesel-electric machinery on earth.

If he smiles, I know it's good & true -- and up to the standard of build expected in a hyper-silent attack submarine!

[henrik_o]

Another thing I picked up from Rune's vast arsenal of precision installation methods is that if you're worried about slight misalignments between two parts across a long distance (in this case the rail-unit aluminium block and the rail itself) and you know one of them is true, use some very thin metal plates (0.25-0.2-0.15-0.1 mm) sliding them across the joint to see where they stay clear and where they enter into the joint. Mark as appropriate. This way we could quickly identify ridges and valleys across the distance and correct where needed, using the measuring blocks as compensatives in clamping everything true.

All in all, an almost ridiculously fast and accurate technique to achieve 1/10th of a millimeter accuracy over several meters.

[myxpykalix]

Henrik,

That shop looks nicer than some of our houses. I can't wait to see sawdust on the floor.

[henrik_o]

Jack,

Thanks, but as I said it's not really the 'shop part of the shop' but the former customer reception area.

I'm proud to announce that sawdust will soon begin to accumulate, however, since as of today everything is up and running! The process went very smoothly and it was a joy to assemble it, many thanks to Scott, Chris and Frank for being on hand answering the questions I had, and to Dianne for being such a great help, 'holding my hand' throughout the whole process!

I had been worried about buying machinery like this from such a distant source, but the people at Shopbot have made it by far the most pleasant machinery purchase process I've ever been through (and despite my tender age I've been through quite a few).

Tomorrow the slaughter of the insulation foam begins, and by the weekend I should be ready to do some real cuts.

I'm a happy puppy, oh yes I am

[henrik_o]

Just a quick update to say everything is going fantastic. I'm just doing the really basic stuff, so I don't have a lot of questions right now.

More after the weekend.

[myxpykalix]

Just a note on the "forced precision method" with a clamp mentioned above. When my table arrived, a welded table made locally, it was out of square by about 1/4" due to the loading/unloading ect on the truck. We took a cumalong hook it on one end and cranked until we squared it up (it ended up being about 1/16th out) but that was good enough for me. So you could use a cumalong to cinch you up if needed.

[harryball]

Sawdust on the floor! You're not going to actually USE the shopbot are you? I thought this was just a showroom up front to impress the customers while all the elves did all the work in the back room. ;-)

Do post pictures of it running, I agree with Jack, that beauty lives nicer than we do.

I found a come-along to be too granular, I used a large 12" turnbuckle and some cable. Like squaring a large screen door. You can turn it slowly and make very small adjustments. The come-along was too loose or too tight, no in between.

BTW, my wife asked how her "Swedish friend" was doing. She doesn't understand why we aren't packing and buying plane tickets. She reasons you'd appreciate help with the bot and Sweden has bats so we should go. :-)

Robert

[henrik_o]

Sorry about not updating the thread. I wanted to get through some more stages nearing finality, and we are getting there now. First,


7453

ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG! ALARM! SAWDUST IN SECTOR G4!

Oooh yeah h e r e w e g o!

This is a shot of what I'd consider the birthing cut (the quickening cut was of course the shopbot logo) since this is the first cut with all major systems online, including dust collection and vacuum, and at 'production speed'. As you can see, the DC can't keep up with the wicked speed of the machine chewing right through 19mm MDF.

Daddy is so proud. Oh yes he is.

Moving backwards in time,


7454

Shot of preliminary setup before DC and vacuum and without complete assembly finished. Pretty much hooking it up to the computer and making some moves.

Returning to the present,


7455

Trusty old ELMO born again. We took him apart and cleaned him, changed some bearings, and assembled as new. He has some patches, a bruise or two, but boy did he flex his muscles for us in return for the favours. I tried to nudge a sheet of MDF on the bleeder by hitting it with a mallet. No sir, that won't do, that won't do at all. The MDF got a bruise and the mallet as well, but nudging was for naught.

Having verified that everything works, he'll be put out of the spotlight to a side room where his powerful tenor will be somewhat more tolerable. He managed to quite frighten some horses passing by today, so the exile is warranted.

Finally,


7456

First parts! This is just some 'door crowns'* I doodled in C4D, and thought they'd fit my mother's apartment and make for a great first cut. It worked like a charm: I went a bit overboard with the speed so there was some very slight chatter in the arched areas, the kind that two strokes with 150 grit sanding takes care of, but other than that it was a homerun. After powering down the spindle, the bit felt almost cool.

When I get these puppies finished up and installed, I'll be sure to post to Show & Tell.

Life is sweet in Sweeden

[henrik_o]

Robert,

Happy to oblige with some pics of the working setup, and running. Whoa, it took a while, but Embla is dead on square afaict. First commercial production duty scheduled for tomorrow, when she'll be doing some hole arrays for church textile cabinets. Since no two churches are alike, this is something that I budget 3.5 hours for, normally. I expect to cut that to 5 minutes once the programming is done and parametrized.

Oh, and tell your 'better half' that your Swedish friend is doing terrific
. Be patient, while Embla's living quarters might look nice I have some secret plans for the 'control room' being made ready in the adjacent room; let's just say it will be downright extra nice. Dedicated restroom and all.

[myxpykalix]

Good job Henrik, but you are not truly a member till you learn the secret handshake.....

[henrik_o]

I dunno'bout them sekrit shakes'n'all, but I guess I'll figure it out eventually.

Anyway, things are going along very nicely. There’s been a lot of play and very little work, so Embla is not a dull girl (yet). Her uncanny powers of piercing would make the protagonist of that certain movie quite sedated in sheer admiration, however, I’m sure.

First, some play. Shop is right by a commercial stable, and the closest neighbours have horses, hence the first attempt at something sculptural was bound to be equestrian. Model downloaded free from the internet, touched up in Cinema 4D, exported as 3DS to MillWizard and cut using a .25” endmill for roughing passes and a .125” ballnose for finishing, both from the start kit. For a first try, I think it turned out very nicely.


7457

and a closeup;


7458

Yes, there was some sanding to do, but overall a very pleasant experience. Total machining time about an hour. This is just an example, one out of many first trials.

As an aside, the most enjoyable play so far was making some plates to put under your shot glass, I’m not sure what it’s called in English. In Sweden, this time of year marks the month of kräftskivor, festivities calling for outdoors consumption of inane amounts of shellfish and shnapps. There’s a lot of singing, too. Yeah, it gets pretty rowdy. I had secured an invitation to a select party, the dozen participants of which were all known to me. I doodled these said participants freehand in Macromedia Flash (in a most unflattering manner I might add), imported to Cinema 4D for touch up, exported as dxf and cut motives plus perimeter from partwizard toolpaths. It was quite the hit, with all specimens being pocketed by the character assassinated parties, respectively. Unfortunately, my camera hand was a tad unsteady (to put it in polite terms) so I don’t have any pics of this little technical/social experiment, but oh well.

Then, the work.

One of our product lines is making textile storage cabinets for churches. Most of the churches in the Church of Sweden (Lutheran former state church), there’s about 1400 of them, are medieval of origin. During the times of the Swedish Empire, circa 1600-1700 AD, Swedish armies ravaged through Europe as far south as Prague and eastwards towards the (then) border between Ukraine and Turkey. The noblemen officers of the Army greatly enriched themselves from bounties of war (i.e looting) and they had the finest artisans of Europe make great textiles which were donated to the often quite small and modest parish churches of their upbringing. As such, even the small and neglected countryside churches of Sweden typically own a treasure of fine textiles; it is not uncommon for a single item of clerical dress to be insured at a higher value than all other inventory items put together. They need to be stored flat and unfolded, and protected against adverse climate and fire.

Here’s the hulk of one such cabinet in the process of preliminary hardware fitting;


7459

And the backside;


7460

Now, Embla is just being eased into production. Most of the parts of this cabinet, especially the drawers, were made before she arrived. I do have fairly detailed timesheets of pre-cnc time budgets; once we do one of these fully cnc’ized I’ll try to post them side by side for comparison. I can say that time making just the cabinet insides went down from approximately 14 manhours to 4 manhours. And this includes novice design/’programming’ time plus extra super conservative cut speeds. We should be able to get it down to at the very least 2 manhours, possibly less.

So far time savings; there’s also value added. Most of our textile cabinets so far have been pretty ascetic in design, usually just picking up a few elements from the surrounding historical interior/furniture (such as crown moldings, legs etc).

For this one, with some help from the bishop’s press secretary / graphic profile office we made a sign inlay for the crown molding, with supporting shaping of the crown molding. While it would technically be possible to do without our Embla, it would have involved serious manhours; as it were, we could add it to the design with minimal overhead. The sign itself is the heraldic Shield of the Church of Sweden: it will be part painted red (cross motif) and part gilded (crown and shield) before install. This is what it looks like with two primer coats on it, molding with pocket and non-installed sign inlay, positioned for photograph on our ‘entry rock’ (dunno if you have that in the US, it is quite scenic);



7461

That’s the main shop entrance in the background.


7462

And a close-up, with the neighbour’s house in the background.

This machine rocks

[fleinbach]

Henrik,


Great work! After reading I'm not sure I understand. Did you make the Crown and the emblem?

What material is that? And how long is the whole crown piece?

[henrik_o]

Frank,

Thanks!

Clarification: the crown molding was done entirely by us. The emblem was supplied as an .ai file iirc, I imported it into Cinema 4D to extrude in z and work on the 3D aspect of it, then exported as 3DS to MillWizard.

Material is Karlit MDF, a high-density MDF. (The horse's head is in the same material.) In these pictures, the horsy has one coat of primer on it, the crown/emblem has two coats with one sanding pass in between.

The whole crown piece is just under a meter and a half, 1475 mm iirc.

I'll post some more pictures when it's all finished.

[fleinbach]

Henrik,

I realy like the design of your crown it would work well in one of my theaters above the screen.

[henrik_o]

Frank,

That's great to hear. If I can be of any help supplying files/vector data just say so, the design isn't complicated at all.

[fleinbach]

Henrik,


Thanks for the offer. I could probably make something simular but if you don't mind sharing I'm interested in a copy. You can post it here or email me directly.

[henrik_o]

Frank,

I'd be happy to return just a teeny little bit of all the awesome help this forum has given me. I assume the final dxf isn't of much help due to difficulties editing it etc, but I could post the vectors used to loft (some might call it extrude, it's loft in Cinema 4D) the profile as dxf, and you could take it from there. I don't have the file on this computer, but I'll make a mental note of posting it.

As an update, here's what that crown with emblem looks like finished and ready for install (which will happen mid next week);


7463


7464

There's also been some more play. After we finished up the workweek earlier today I decided to do something about the floor of our primary entrance, which is made of cork tiles and rather drab. I have a supply of pretty nice oak veneer click-style-install flooring, and I thought a nice motif right at the entrance would enhance it.

First, I googled (image search) for "compass rose". Found a nice pic that would make for a fairly easy project. Imported the image into Cinema 4D and traced it as vectors, which took all of 10 minutes due to the robust vector tools of that program (gotta <3 the symmetry object modifier -- if anyone is interested in a workflow description, it should be essentially the same for most CAD/3D suits, I could post that.)

We have a large scrap stack of veneered 4mm mdf, so I picked out some mahogany, beech and cherry and laid them out on the shopbot table. Then I noted the dimensions of each scrap sheet, and using guidelines in Partwizard to denote the borders it was a snap to lay out all the parts on the correct piece of mdf. I think our vacuum system would hold for a single through pass, but due to the bashed up nature of the bleeder I decided to leave a 0.25mm skin. After it was all cut out, which took less than 10 minutes, I used the bandsaw to rip ~400mm strips and then sent them all face-downwards through the planer. Total time so far, about 45 minutes.

The pics;


7465

In the following pic we can see just how tight the fit is even though the vetors were basically just drawn and copy-rotated plus copy-symmetry, with almost no hand editing of nodes (since there will be a ship's deck-style visible black filler line between all parts I opted for the fast approach):


7466

I think I'll try my hand at some inlays in the reddish parts of the design, but since I'm not sure that'll work I made a complete design as a backup in case I goof up.

Anyway, this is just for fun and I'm soaking in all the ins and outs of speeds, bits, holddown, design, you name it.

[henrik_o]

Ah, here we go with the profiles for the crown, saved as dxf from Cinema 4D.


dxfprofiles

7467 (19.0 k)

There are just two unique profiles, the dxf shows the repeats/spacing as per my implimentation. In order to keep the actual shape but change length of the molding, just move the two end profiles. Now, these were lofted in C4D and the 3D interpolation will differ between programs, so you will need software that does this and maybe tweak the settings a little bit, but I think almost any relatively 3D-capable software does this.

As an aside, since Neville mentioned checking out 'that software', yes, while I have access to 'real' CAD I mostly use Cinema 4D. I haven't heard any mention of it on here so I may as well explain why I use it;

First, habit. I got started with it in the graphics course of my computer science program. I purchased a student's license and has stuck with it since. I know most of the GUI/menu tree by rote, and while I do know it's quite awkward for many CAD workflows (it's mainly used in 3D modeling and animation for commercials plus some architectural/manufacturing visualisation) I know it so well doing it the 'wrong way' is faster for me.

Second, I like how it seamlessly integrates 2D and 3D. One might argue that it's not that great in either department, but going from 2D to 3D or vice versa is very straightforward. This is important to me because I use it both for making (2D) plans and (3D) customer visualisations. I can start out in 2D making a plan, then switch in and out to 3D as I go to make sure everything fits up in the virtual 'real world', make a true visualisation, then go back to 2D and have perfect plans.

Third, the animation tools. This may sound really strange, but we make many things which involve moving parts which are not pre-fabbed. For example, this spring we made a reception desk where the customer wanted easy access to computers for the clerks, but also no clumsy screens to obstruct the person-person interchange with clients. Solution, we built a system where the screen/keyboard was recessed, and when the clerk needs to access the computer they flip a switch, the screen swivels up into work position and the keyboard slides out. This involved dozens of moving parts, which we all made inhouse. With the kinematic tools of C4D I could devise and test such a system in a manner of minutes instead of hours and hours of trial and error.

If I had to start all over again, I may well have chosen otherwise, but as it stands it works for me, and it does give me a trick or two up the sleeve.

[fleinbach]

Henrik,

I like your compass rose, very nice. You are moving along rather rapidly. I see you will be producing many incredible projects.

I downloaded your file and upon opening it in both my primary cad program Chief Architect and also Artcam I found only a few straight lines. I am unfamiliar with Cinema 4D so I suppose I will make my own reproduction. I realy will have no problem reproducing it I suppose I was just being lazy trying to do it the easy way.But I thank you for your efforts. It was greatly appreciated
.

[henrik_o]

Oh dear, I forgot to flip the Y.

This one will work:


dxfprofiles2

7468 (6.4 k)

[henrik_o]

Textile cabinet finished and installed. I've added a thread in Virtual Show & Tell; Haraker church, Sweden (http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/messages/17997/23722.html?1188410245).

I have some more odd and ends, including some molds for making shaped plastic parts and a couple of artsy projects, but I'll save that for later.

'Real' line production is scheduled to begin next week.

[jsfrost]

Henrick,

Forget the handshake, you are in the club!