Community challenge #28: Return of challenges

Less than a week left!

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Topography - check
Inlays - check

ok you got me how could I resist.

I decided to make a plaque of the state of Oregon with inlays (walnut into a much lighter wood)… and pondered what would happen if you would, instead of just machining away the backend of the inlay plug like one normally does… you would carve a 3D topographic map into the back of the plug.

Ok so step one is always making the plugs; by doing the same steps from the tutorial, with a 20 degree V bit and 2mm regular endmill, it was more or less standard


inlay-oregon-plug-text.c2d (176 KB)

Then the state map; since it’s much bigger than I normally do inlays, I went with my trusted 302E 60 degree V bit and a 1/8" area clearing tool (for the plug) and went for a 0.25" depth.


inlay-oregon-plug-state-v2.c2d (2.3 MB) (Disclaimer: In my actual cut it turned out I used a copyrighted image for the state outline, so I replaced that with a public domain version for the c2d file here to avoid trouble)

Then it came to cutting the base, and unfortunately I did not take a picture of that… but it was again mostly standard following the tutorial. The only unconventional thing i did was use a 1/4" bit for the area clearing of the state to reduce cut time significantly.
inlay-oregon-base-v2.c2d (2.4 MB)

And then came the fun part, the 3D model. TouchTerrain did not disappoint and in no time I had a nice STL file of the whole state (due to the ratio of the size of a state versus the heights of mountaints, I went with a 3X Z amplification).
It was slightly tricky to make sure the 3D model of the state lined up with the SVG outline… and the only way I got this to work was to first do the 3D model, and then size/align/locate the SVG as best as I could on top of it; one needs to do this in the plugin base file since the size of that state SVG is used for the plug as well.
Now for the toolpaths it was interesting; the plug material will be above the base material and stick out by 0.25" (the material was 0.75", I cut the base of the plug 0.25" deep so I assumed 0.5" was left but I forgot the glue gap in that math… thankfully I had that set very small).
This was easiest to model in Carbide Create as 0.5" stock, with the zero at the bottom… this allowed me to reuse the same zero throughout the whole process.

First I removed extra material that sticks outside the state lines from the plug by contouring with a 1/8" bit (sturdy) and then a 2mm bit (fragile)… then 3D roughing with a 1/4" bit 201, and for the final finishing pass I used my R=0.5 (1mm diameter) tapered ballnose. At first I started to do this in the left-to-right direction. Big mistake… it was the same direction as the woodgrain so it was a big stringfest. Aborted the cut quickly, changed the toolpath to have a 90 degree angle and… no more strings.

inlay-oregon-3d-v2.c2d (2.2 MB)
(same disclaimer on copyrighted material)

Next step: finishing with a bit of walnut oil and … project finished


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started last night! …it’s fine … I’m not worried, you’re worried :sweat_smile:

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I live by ‘if you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do’ rule more often than I’d care to.

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Really like the detailed explanation, very helpful for us wanna be like @fenrus !

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.




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I really like all the designs where the topography is raised above the surrounding stock. It really adds depth to the finished product. Well done.

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I took my idea of topography to a different place. The Moon. 3D is the goal, but for me to get started 2D was a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone who posts questions and anwers. Ive done a lot of reading on here and thats what made this possible at this point. The project is 26" X 26"

The view will be from the Earths Moon. The moon and Earth have been designed on CCV7 on a Shapeoko 5.

The Moon is created on plywood. The craters have been stained with Samon - Ebony 318 stain. The crevasses filled with 200 ml of Beaver Dust - Silver grey resin. The Moons surface is then done in 220 ml of concrete and covered in 200 ml clear resin.



The Earth was made from plywood. The water is Blue Pearl Dry Resin. The underlying clouds are silver mica powder. The top clouds are Titanium Dioxide mix with only part ‘B’ resin, then blown around the earth with a heat gun to make the effect. Then a final top coat of 200ml resin.



The Stars were dollar store metal tiles for backsplash. I left them somewhat raised but feel i should have sunk them in further.

Key holes are done but i did those on my router table due to time. Although once i get faster the cnc will be my main way to acieve that on these projects.

The backing is again plywood. Simple boarder. Again stained with Samon Ebony 318 stain. There are pockets for the Stars and the Earth.





I would like to add to this project and change different things. Over all im crazy happy with it. Im not sure what i can say for the mistakes because i sort of just rolled with it and what ever came of it i was happy with.

I learned a lot about the cnc. A lot about the community here and the help and excitement for others. I hope you enjoy the pictures.
Thanks for your time,
Michael

  • If anyone wants to know anything i will be pleased to answer. I will try and get this file up. (So much involved in this texnology for me).
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Where did the moon image come from? Ive been wanting to do some moon topography. Im a bit of a space nerd. Ive tried figurimg out the US geological data for the moon, but so far ive been unsuccessful with getting something i like.

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It was simply a google image. Both the Moon and Earth were google images. Love Space Thank you for your interest.

Maybe I should add the picture of the crate that my entry shipped in upon arrival at my customer’s home! Well, to add another lesson to my lessons learned, over built crates are clearly not enough, you should triple build your crates when shipping. They clearly played a game of see if we can drop this in as violent a manner as possible at some point in the shipping chain. Will not know if there was damage until Sunday. Fun times.

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I am a new CNC user - started 60 days ago - and wouldn’t have considered making anything for this challenge until I started looking at all the great things people are making and how they explained the process.

Reading about the Grand Canyon project and checking out the links Jarrad provided caused me to give it a try and see if I could figure out the process.

The website link to get a topo map file is great and I chose an area in NW Colorado where I have been visiting for 65+ years. I had a scrap piece of 8/4 poplar wood so I gave it a try and was amazed how well the machine can carve it out.



The cut was 1.5" deep and after doing the 3D rough cut I realized that the 1/8" ball bit was too short to cut that deep so I had to round up a longer bit so I could finish it. I shut down the machine and disconnected my laptop for a day and when I came back to it I had it jog to the XY location and it went back to the correct spot so I proceeded with the finish cut with no trouble.

After it was finished I painted in the lakes and streams and then stained the poplar so it didn’t look all light colored.

I had a piece of maple so I had the machine cut in a pocket for the topo to rest in and added the text with a vcarve path. Font is the national park font that a previous post had a link to.

One other piece I just made was a knife holder for a family member. I put a pocket of the map of Arizona into it and added copper colored epoxy since Arizona is the “copper state” In the pocket the machine carved out a raised symbol which is their agriculture brand.

I wanted to figure out how to cut the box joints on the machine so was able to rig up a material holder on the front of the machine secured to the t-track slots. It worked out well considering it was the first go at it. The knife holder is made of maple and alder at the top.

I really appreciate all the helpful pointers and suggestions folks have as they answer other peoples questions. I wouldn’t be this far along without being able to read all the comments. Great forum.

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I’ve actually had this project in the wish list for a few years, but never had a driver to set aside the time to learn how to do this all. Community challenge pushed me along and I’m happy with the result.

In 2017 2 friends and I hiked for 5 days around Dormer Mountain, it was just over 60km which had what felt like 100 water crossings back and forth over the Panther river. It was frequent enough you just give up on changing out of your hiking boots and save your dry runners for camp each night.

I used Terrain2STL and cropped the view to capture the hiking path we took.

This supplied me with a great stl which I used meshmixer to crop out some of the bulk at the bottom.

My friend sent me the screen shot of the gps path we took and where the campsites were which I traced with Inkscape for later use.

I ended up breaking this process into a few different files to keep them straight in my head.

PantherHike.c2d (3.6 MB)
(ignore the bit names in the file, working off a new laptop and hadnt set up my library yet. The correct bits are in this writeup)
The first was the 3D roughing pass done on a 11" x 7" x 2.75" chunk of black walnut. I used my long reach 1/4" ball nose bit to clear out the bulk of the material. I was careful to ensure there was a solid wall around the mountain range so I could later flip over the stock to work from the other side. Since the route was a loop, I added breaks in teh path where camp was each night and used those areas as tabs to hold it all together and later milled those out for decorative pins.


This did take a while… Amana Tool 46294

PantherHike_path_pocket.c2d (120 KB)
The Hiking path was machined from the backside (so flipped the workpiece over and re-indexed and secured down. (Kept the same Zero)

I used just simple vector lines and did each days path at an appropriate depth. I used this bit
Amana Tool 46280-K. To ensure I was milling deep enough I did add a rough pocket first to work inside of.

PantherHike_path_plug.c2d (136 KB)
The plugs were cut out of a 2x4 and hammered home. I used the same vectors (flipped) with offsets on either side for the bit to follow. It mostly worked.

The finish passes next would clean up any plug sticking through.

Along the way I found voids in the walnut so these were touched up with CA glue, later to be cleaned up in the finishing pass as well.

Flip over the stock after gluing in the inlay hiking path and load up the finishing pass file.


It’s cleaning up nicely.

I opted for two finishing passes, so I could do additional cleanup with CA glue in between.
First pass at 45deg, second at 135deg
image

Whipped up a simple frame (24"x14.5"), threw some pictures from the trip around the carving and added some brass pegs to mark the start/end and the 4 camp sites.

17 Likes




This is a topographical map of Titusville looking at Kennedy Space center launch pads. It is to be mounted in a park and will show visitors where to look for the launch. It is solar powered and lights up when you press a button on the front. The pads names are inlayed clear resin and are backlit. I did a rough cut and fine cut, then poured the resin and did a second fine cut a little deeper to clear the excess resin. Then I cut the back down to the resin so the letters are could be backlit.

Here are the fines I used.

Titusville KSC Pad pointer 3 front cuts.c2d (3.3 MB)
Titusville KSC Pad pointer 3 Back cuts+.c2d (2.3 MB)

These files were modified as I went but you can see how I did the work.

Is was difficult to get a 3d map in Florida, very flat here. I had to exaggerate the high a little. Seams we have a few sand dunes.

I used old 2x4s for the wood. (Cheap and Green) Need to be very careful when cutting or letters break off. Did 2 glue/sawdust repairs. They are hard to find. works well.

Made the wood Blake and the cut files on another day but did everything else on the 12th.

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Incredible work! What a great job you did Steven!!
Details and stain are beautiful.

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Amazing job Bob. 60 days in and you’re setting standards :wink: i just hit 15 days and i feel im on my way too. The help here is a big part of it.

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Solid projects all around! Good job! I’ll make a thread when I can later today for voting and we’ll follow a week voting time. I’m traveling currently so it may be a while, unless @Julien wants to do the honor.

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Here’s a poll for y’all to vote!

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Why does that thread say 18 voters and 63 votes? Are
We supposed to vote for more than one?

Voting is a series of checkboxes, so yes, it is possible to vote for more than one.