Community challenge #23: The Special One (closed)

Steve - Happy to see the beautiful sign you did for your buddy. It’s all about sharing. Ironically enough, I too own a Kitfox Speedster plane that I built in Georgia and you sign has inspired me to make for a good friend that also has a Kitfox. Nice long flight to Oshkosh??? Done it myself a few times.

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@PMorel - Thanks for your kind words. More projects coming on the Kitfox. We’re upgrading the avionics to a Garmin G3X and adding autopilot (to help with the next cross-country flight). I’m going to cut his new dash out of anodized aluminum on my Shapeoko and laser-engrave the switch labels with a Jtech Laser that I’m about to purchase. 15 hours there, 16 hours back (stopping every 3 hours for gas and bio break). And the captain never turned off the seatbelt sign :slight_smile:

tried a variety of depths to see which one I liked best. Of course that would vary depending on the design of what is being cut but this gives me an idea. I also think a 30 degree V bit would work nicely too. I might repeat this test with that bit.

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Throw my hat in the ring here in hopes that the prize is a HDM to cut 1.5" thick Acrylic. :laughing:

This signage was for a client who wanted the look of “formed letter signage” without having to pay the $300-400 per letter that this type of signage costs across their 40 locations. The most important thing I learned from doing this (apart from how to mill 1.5" thick Acrylic) is the easiest way to generate profit from owning a Shapeoko is get into the sign business.

The Process:
1.25" thick acrylic is the thickest that I know you can buy from plastic suppliers and this client wanted 1.5" thick letters. That meant getting 2x .75" thick sheets and using a plastic weld to fuse them together. I used WeldOn 4. this + a-lot of clamps created my stock.

Once I had the stock I had to make the design. The two biggest challenges with making commercial ready signage are as follows:

  1. Making everything look hidden
  2. Dealing with “mall cops” and commercial property managers regarding code and permitting issues. this is especially true if your signage is electrified. Accordingly, much of the process below takes into account UL listed parts… thats not to say you can’t do it cheaper… I just used higher quality electronics because I had to.

Channels for the LED rope needs to be offset from the letter edges and holes bored for hanger bolts to insert into.

The hanger bolt holes (as well as holes for mounting the superstruts and a hole to pass through each letters JST connector) need to be transfered onto a “backer” so that you have a “map” of where the letters mount.


Then you need to find a space long enough to tile 24’ of sign backer through :laughing: my foyer did just fine

Next you need to painstakingly solder all of the letter connections according to the type of LEDs you are using and the directionality of the data pin.

Finally, you need to wire everything correctly and make sure you have even voltage across the sign and enough of a power supply to drive around 35’ of 5v LED rope. I’m not going to get into the nuances of this but I will link all of my materials below where I can.

Also, milling 1.5" thick acrylic is challenging, I detail my struggles trying to get a near sand-less finish in this thread in depth. After much trail and error, I got to a finish quality where I could likely start at 220grit sandpaper and end up at matte pretty quickly. Not perfect, but other then doing a 2-sided machining I don’t think that Shapeoko3XXL has the rigidity needed to get a PERFECTLY smooth finish at a 1.5" cutting depth in something as hard as acrylic.

Materials List:

PS if youve gotten this far wondering why there are two business names … when I was in the middle of making the first batch of 13 signs they decided to re-brand from testing to health :roll_eyes:

Fusion File:
https://a360.co/3iRgpqk

Mistakes:

  • Under-powering your LEDs; 300w 5v 60amp Driver is BARELY enough to get pure white light on the “white” color.
  • Wiring your LEDs in Series vs Parallel and getting voltage drop over the long sign
  • Using LEDs from the same company but different production runs have slightly different color whites
  • Not including 2-3 hours of edge sanding per sign in your estimate to get a matte edge finish on the letters
  • Thinking that soldering one letter together would take 10mins (reality was 30-45 once you got good at it).
  • Not selling a service contract after a 6 month warranty period.
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It’s a great sign. Have you considered using PVC board with a coat of paint and coating it in epoxy? You will get a super nice glossy finish and save a ton of money on materials. You can also add mica powders for really cool effects.

Check out Stone Coat Counter tops they have great DIY videos showing how to simulate various stones and other great finishes.

.

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My wife wanted a door hanger for the Fall and gave me an idea of what she wanted, a pumpkin with “Welcome” over it.

I found a pumpkin svg and turned traced it in carbide.

Cut down some MDF and got it cut out.

we found a font she liked but had to save it outside carbide since I could not find a way to convert it correctly to line art and imported it to carbide. I painted the MDF before cutting it out.

I primed and painted the Pumpkin.



I tried painting the inside of the letters and got paint all over the Welcome sign.

I sanded it down and repainted it green and watered down some acrylic paint to fill in the letters.

I lined up the welcome sign on the pumpkin and screwed it in from the back.

Now we just have to wait for fall to hang it on the door and the wife is very happy with it.

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I was asked to create a sign for a small start up plant business, a friend of the owner. She sent me a sticky note with what she want on the sing. I created a mock up and sent it to her and asked to make sure everything was correct, she said it looked great. I cut and finished the sign and sent her a photo of the finished piece. After several days she final said the date was wrong so I sent her back the note she had provided, she said she was sorry and asked if I could fix it. I cut several “0” on a scrap piece of material used my band saw to cut them off, I then used a carving chisel to remove the number “1” from the finished piece and glued, sanded, stained the edges then re-sprayed the entire piece. The owner was extremely happy with the new sign her friend had commissioned for her.




Processing: 193F8B26-E719-407F-8A8C-5F563457A0C2.jpeg…


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Hey everyone! New Shapeoko owner & first time poster here. :smile: Didn’t intend for this to be my entry, but time flies when you’re having fun! I came up with a simple pen holder that fits into Sweepy. It’s posted on Cutrocket, and only takes 10 minutes to make. Give it a shot! I’m happy with how it works, but I wanted to use different writing utensils. I made another one that straps on to the router spindle and makes color changes way easier. Been having lots of fun doing pen & marker drawings lately–much less noise and dust… lol. Anyway here’s a little sign I made for myself as a friendly reminder to keep calm & carry on. I’m super impressed with all these other entries, and I really enjoy coming here for inspiration! Thanks!











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I’ve been pretty quiet but that’s because I’m blown away by the number/diversity/quality of entries, now you all have me worried I’ll break the poll system limit when we get to the voting :slight_smile:
Keep them coming!

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Hi Chris

Welcome and great first post and project.

I really like this project (it’s one of my life sayings) - If you can make this out of wood before the competition ends - I’d love to send you a couple of end mills to start your tooling collection!

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This sign brings me back to the best rule my friends wife has for her kids when they go to the skate park.

Her son was 9 and cut someone off and was being rude at the park so she yelled across the park “Hey you know the rules when we come here and rule number 1 is Don’t be a Dick”. She straitened his little ass right up made him apologize and the day went smooth from there.

She loves her kids but when they step too far out of line she makes them understand that the behavior is unacceptable and gives them tough love when needed.

It was unexpected but great at the same time.

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Hey Luke! Thanks, man! Wow, really? :astonished: That’d be awesome! I’m gonna get right on it! I had a couple more ideas anyway and there’s still plenty of time left! :slight_smile:

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Hahahaha, that’s great. I wish I had learned this lesson years ago. Skateparks can definitely get a little crowded, but it makes it way more fun when everyone’s courteous. We all need a friendly reminder sometimes. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Hi everyone – still a newbie here. I got my SO3 on Black Friday in 2020 and used it a bit over Christmas break but have not been able to find much time since then due to work and crazy COVID. But I took this challenge to get back on the machine and continue to learn.

So I set the following goals for this sign:

  1. Make something much bigger than my SO3 (standard size) could do on its own
  2. Use as many different wood materials as possible from my small stock and scrap piles (not to buy anything new)
  3. Use as many different finishing techniques
  4. Use as many different router bits
  5. Use as many other non-CNC tools as possible (router table, planer, jigsaw, table saw)
  6. Use only Carbide 3d Software (Carbide Create Pro beta 608 and Carbide Motion)
  7. Use the 3d cutting feature of Pro that I have not tried yet
  8. Use as many different functions within Carbide Create (Boolean, offsets, layers, import)
  9. Be hangable in my Man Cave room so would likely have to be Denver Broncos related
  10. Learn as much as I can, especially on workholding, speeds/feeds, removal of tabs, etc

Design
I started with an import of a standard PNG logo. I was very pleasantly surprised at how clean it converted it to a vector. When I have tried to do this in Inkscape or online tools, they did not seem to be as clean (with minimal nodes), so very happy with the CC functionality.
To be able to be bigger than machine, I thought about using some left over fence cedar boards to create a pattern from the center out to the edges. This required me to create many triangle vectors that would then need to be cropped (Boolean).

I originally started with a square but ended up with too much empty space, so shifted to a full circle. But when I first did it from the center out, it ended up leaving me way too many small pieces that would not meet well, so I moved the center to actually be off-centered with the circle, but centered around the Broncos logo.
I then downloaded the actual Broncos font vs. using the image. I then created a border (off set) to allow space V-carve the words “BRONCOS DENVER”. I then had to do more Boolean to create the cedar back pieces.
I then wanted an outside, round border but could not cut a piece 28 inches in diameter. So I decided to break it into 6 equal size pieces (60 degrees each). I did not like the idea of just butting the ends together so decided to use a semi-circle to help join it up. In hindsight, I should have made it more like a puzzle that would actually interlock, which I now have a mental note on that.
BorderDesign

So I then figured out I had a big problem in that the pieces that I would need to cut out of the cedar would exceed my width of the board, especially since I moved the center point up. So to keep the bottom pieces, I ended up changing the full circle and making it more like a chord at the bottom…

3d – I loved playing around with the pro features to take the Broncos logo and making the orange hair manes and white body all 3d – I was a bit confused with all the settings (angle, limits, etc…) but after playing quite a bit, I think I got it figured out. The wiki pages, youtube videos, and this forum was extremely helpful…
Another major flaw was not taking into account inner vs. outer pieces when using a round bit. I cut out the Broncos logo (as I was still designing this), and when I tried to fit in the 3d pieces and the cedar pieces, I ended up having to either sand it round or cut the sharper piece out. I figured this out after I cut the Broncos, but before I cut the name, so decided to try to design the fix. I could not figure out a way to do the Boolean, so I just drew a circle the size of the drill bit (1/8”) and then adjusted the nodes. Hopefully someone can comment on how this could have been done smarter and more effective, but my way did work…
Circles

Also, after cutting the Broncos logo base and then cutting the orange manes, I realized something was off on my machine as the inner pieces were off by 0.03” – see post here https://community.carbide3d.com/t/help-with-pocket-and-contour/34850 and the great support I received from this group – turns out my v-wheels and tightness/squareness were not up to par… But I think I got it pretty darn close now…
In order to cut the wood base of “BRONCOS DENVER” which was much bigger than my machine, I was either going to try tiling but also realized the size would just fit if I turned the piece 45 degrees, so I did that – tiling will be next learning for my next project. But took me some time to think about where to actually put the piece on the machine and get the zero right…

Here are photo’s of the project as I went through the project




And here is the final assembly

In summary, I set out over 3 weeks ago with the aspiration to learn - and I sure did.

  1. Make something much bigger than my SO3 (standard size) could do on its own Check - final product is 28" x 20" and the Broncos wood piece is bigger on X &Y axis
  2. Use as many different wood materials as possible from my small stock and scrap piles (not to buy anything new) Check - I used MDF, Cedar, White HDPE, reclaimed Oak, unused maple board
  3. Use as many different finishing techniques Check - white paint sprayed with HVLP sprayer, blue paint, thinned orange latex to see oak grain, masking maple board and painting, and burned cedar with small propane torch and danish oil
  4. Use as many different router bits 90 degree V bit, 1/8" end mill (Both upcut and downcut), 1/4" end mill, then 45 degree router bit in router table to angle the cedar edges and round over on the MDF - wish I could have used more
  5. Use as many other non-CNC tools as possible (router table, planer, jigsaw, table saw) check, used planer to plane cedar boards, jigsaw to cut pieces, router to round edges and clean up tabs, table saw to cut boards, multiple sanders, HVLP sprayer
  6. Use only Carbide 3d Software (Carbide Create Pro beta 608 and Carbide Motion) Check - was pleasantly surprised and I could do everything I needed to do - so well done Carbide 3d
  7. Use the 3d cutting feature of Pro that I have not tried yet Check - was really fun and I want to try more before my 365 day trial ends in a few months
  8. Use as many different functions within Carbide Create (Boolean, offsets, layers, import) Check, check - I used the boolean more than anything and still can’t exactly figure it out - I end up selecting the 2-3 items and then trying the different operations and then undoing. I think the order in which you select the items matter and still need to research this more - trial and error worked as I still got everything eventually
  9. Be hangable in my Man Cave room so would likely have to be Denver Broncos related check, will be hanging it on my Broncos wall
  10. Learn as much as I can, especially on workholding, speeds/feeds, removal of tabs, etc CHECK, CHECK, CHECK

Key learnings

  1. Workholding - still learning here and need to get a hybrid table or at least the t-track system as one MDF board is harder to replace more often - but I did find just screwing the board into the waste board was the easiest and minimal chance of having it interfere…
  2. removal of tabs - cutting with jigsaw and then using a router with trim bit worked the best for me
  3. Overall border - I still need to think of a better way to cut this and make it stick together - the finish was not as smooth as I would have liked…
  4. When you get stuck, just ask this forum - people’s willingness to help is amazing
  5. I should have followed my own advice and posted this on the forum, but I still need to figure out how to make inner and outer cuts exact to accommodate the round bit as the round bit can’t do sharp edges. My manual method of moving nodes was close, but would still be good to know if there is a better way to do a boolean with a circle and the shape
  6. Carbide 3d support is AMAZING - I did have one broken v-wheel and they overnighted me new ones… You don’t recognize how good they are til you deal with bad customer service - for example, I recently purchased an Ooni pizza oven, it came with a broken stone, so I tried to contact them and you end up having to create a case where they respond in 3 business days, then took them 2 weeks to ship the replacement stone, and no real good way to escalate… They have since changed to 1 business day, but still nowhere even close to the level of support that Carbide 3D provides to their great installed base. With so many choices for so many things in this world, Carbide 3D has the right “secret sauce” in my opinion to differentiate on value and customer service…

I welcome any suggestions/improvements that I could have made.**

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The better ways would be:

  • using Boolean subtraction
  • insetting by the radius, then offsetting to the outside by that radius — that will round all sharp points (by design) — see: 2D Drawing - Design into 3D
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Oh Geez - I feel so dumb now… This now makes total sense and I could have saved lots of time and could have surely fit better. Thanks Will for providing the information. At least I’ll know better next time. Thanks again!

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Anytime you find yourself worrying you’re not doing something optimally, feel free to post here or send in an e-mail to support@carbide3d.com and we’ll do our best to work things out with you.

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Alright! Round 2! This time I used a piece of plywood scrap that I had painted high-gloss purple at work. Just did a regular Vcarve. Masked the workpiece with Ramboard tape before cutting–this worked ok but I feel like it was the wrong choice of tape… It gets really gummy & frayed during machining. Maybe next time I should try blue painters tape instead? Anyway once it was done, I spray painted the carving gold with Rustoleum, peeled the tape off, and voilà! Some now golden words of advice:







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Nice work.
I am your neighbor in Covington, WA

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I have been doing a lot of 3D projects lately. This one is an office sign that I made for a friend of mine who is a female law enforcement officer. She was recently promoted to the number 2 position in the agency and is the first female to ever fill that position. Since the agency was founded in 1855, I thought that was a good milestone. I am pretty proud of her career accomplishments, and she is just an all around really good person. Over time she has earned the nickname, “Super + her last name.” She is a pretty humble person and had no influence on the project, so I took my ideas and went to work.

I used 2” Cherry for the background shirt portion and 1” Walnut for the badge portion. The final project size ended up being about 21” x 23” for the shirt and 10” for the badge. All of the project work was done using V-Carve Pro on my Shapeoko Pro XXL.

For material prep, I cut all of the wood into 3” to 4” strips, planed and joined as needed, opposed the grain, and then glued up the pieces. I cleaned up the dried glue and planed again for a flat surface. The 2” shirt portion was too thick to cut through with the end mills that I have, so I needed to turn it into a double a sided carve to cut the profile all of the way through and v-carve my logo on the back. For this, I just ran that project piece through the table saw several times until it measured square.

I already had the STLs for the shirt and badge. The STL for the badge was created by Brian Koehler at DisplayVETS, and he did an outstanding job.

First, I began work on the badge. I needed this done, because I wanted it to be inlayed into the shirt portion of the project and needed it for test fitting when I reached that point on the shirt project. I first did a profile cut around the outside of the model with a ¼” endmill leaving about 1/8” of material. I then completed the 3D carve portion using only a finishing toolpath with a 1/16” tapered ball nose bit. For settings on my bit, I used 160 ipm feed, 70 ipm plunge rate, 8% stepover, and 20,000 rpm. Next, I v-carved all of the text using a 60 degree v bit. When this was complete, I cleaned up the vertical lines of the inner and outside edges with profile toolpaths, a -.01” allowance, and cut all the way through leaving tabs for removal. This portion of the project took about 3.5 hours.

Next, I began work on the shirt portion and started off by cutting a profile around the model about 1” deep with a ¼” end mill. On this project, the depth of the carve was going to be pushing the cutting height limit of my tapered ball nose, so I used both roughing and finishing toolpaths. I set these and my boundary offsets to a point where the end mill or tapered ball nose would not dive too deep into the profile pocketed area. I discovered that I had to readjust this some for the roughing pass, because the end mill was coming a little too close to bottoming the collet into the surrounding wood.

I did the roughing passes in two parts by splitting the project down the middle with a vector and then created two separate closed vectors for each side of the project. I completed one half of the roughing pass one day and then finished the second half the next day. Each half took about 3.5 hours. For feeds and speeds on a ¼” down cut end mill, I used 100 ipm feed, 30 ipm plunge rate, 40% stepover, and 20,000 rpm. These settings have been working very well for me finish wise when cutting hard woods.

Once the roughing passes were complete, I moved on to the finishing pass. I was able to do most of the project with a 1/8” tapered ball nose with good detail. I did this part on the weekend, so I just completed the whole project at once instead of splitting it into halves. For settings on my bit, I used 160 ipm feed, 70 ipm plunge rate, 10% stepover, and 20,000 rpm. This portion took about 5.5 hours and worked out very well for most of project.

I did need a second set of finish passes, because I needed more detail on the hands/fingers that were holding the shirt open. I drew two closed vectors around those areas and set up another finishing pass using a 1/16” tapered ball nose with the same settings as the 1/8” bit except at 8% stepover. Again, this worked out very well taking about an hour to complete.

For the badge inlay, I copied the vector boundary around the badge to this portion of the project. Known from previous projects, I used a .01 allowance for the pocket that the badge would fit into. I used a 1/4’’ flat end mill for this portion using the settings of 75 ipm feed, 30 ipm plunge, 30% stepover, and 20,000 rpm.

I then flipped the project for the second side of the carve. I finished cutting the profile all the way through leaving tabs in the middle of the wood. I also v-carved my logo onto the back.

My finish pass settings are something that I have been experimenting with lately. I have read a lot where some say you want your plunge rate to be about the same or at least 80% of your feed speed. I have tried this and end up with very small horizontal lines in my projects requiring more sanding, so I reduced the plunge rate to a point where there were no lines. I still need to experiment with this to see if I can increase it some. I am not sure that is even attainable though, since the z-max rate is set to 1,000 mm/m. I would really like to hear any feedback that any of you have on this also.

The model height on the shirt portion was about 1.2” with a base height of .4”. This left a lot of vertical carve lines on many of the steep inner areas of the project. It took about a day and a half of sanding just for this portion to remove those lines. Once all of the sanding was done, I glued and clamped the badge onto the shirt portion. After it was dry, I sealed the project with Seal-a-Cell and then coated it with several coats of polyurethane.

I am relatively new to CNC work, and this project was my largest and most in depth so far. I apologize for the long post…hopefully some of this helps someone. I would also really appreciate any feedback or suggestions that anyone has to offer to improve my processes.

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