I make Key Holders with custom locations on my Shapeoko 3 standard. I started with the Tail of the Dragon, but have since added v-carves for the text. The next step, since I ran out of time, would be adding maple inlays for the text for a nicer contrast. My .c3d file won’t upload since it is bigger than 4mb, here’s a drive link: boulder-CO.c2d
Lessons learned:
- Tighten your collets if you’re going to have more aggressive feeds, mine came loose and chewed right through my corner bracket.
- Make sure your stock is square! My Tail of the Dragon stock is not square and I didn’t notice until after I hung it up on the wall.
- I manually put a keyhole in the back for mounting, but could have used Carbide Create to do it instead.
- I wanted to make this file with beginners in mind who likely have the starter set, #201, #102, and the 60 degree v-bit were used along with the #112 1/16" ballnose due to the nature of this challenge being topography. I’d recommend upgrading to Cody’s Jenny bits in the future since you can be far more aggressive and the tapered ball nose bits make a huge difference.
- Use a tooth brush to get the mountains oiled, makes life a lot easier.
