Introduce yourself!

Hello! I’m Gary Morgen. I started as a software developer out of college (Binghamton U) and spent the majority of my life in various forms of IT management, though I continue to code out of the sheer love of it (which is why you’ll see lots of requirements for code changes flowing from me!). For the past 30 years, I’ve also run a portrait photography studio, and for the past 23 years, a woodworking business, both as secondary jobs. 2021 will mark my retirement into my secondary businesses, as I make them my primary source of income. Should be exciting!

Over the past few years, I’ve been upgrading my shop and creating new avenues of woodworking products. Last year, I invested in a Shapeoko XXL and have finally begun to feel at home with it. This year, I’ve added a JTech 7w laser to the kit and am beginning to play with that as well. It’s nice to blend technology and woodworking…two of my passions.

Here is a link to my old website…my new one will be online towards the end of the year. Here also is a link to my shop, as it was displayed in Highland News last November.

This community has been a lot of fun to work with! I look forward to many years of development with all of you.

  • Gary
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Laurence from Pennsylvania -
I manage the spare parts inventory at one of the facilities for the beverage company I’ve been employed with coming up on 25 years. I have a background in industrial maintenance (injection molding, blow molding, beverage filling, packaging and palletizing) as well as inventory management.

My father was a sheetrock installer until his retirement so I’ve had plenty of exposure to woodworking and home construction coming from the summers I spent working with him. I made my first project at age 11 when I built my father an organizer for his work bench out of scrap wood and coarse drywall screws. By the time I graduated high school I could build basic bookshelves, speaker enclosures and quarter pipe skateboard/BMX ramps.

2019 is when I decided I wanted to start a small business but I didn’t have a clue on what I wanted to do exactly.
I had a few side hustles I did pretty well with -
Wedding and event videography - with set up and travel it easily could become an 11-14 hour day then comes the editing afterwards.
Automotive/Motorcycle photography - hours aren’t as long but Instagram is slowly eroding the industry. If I had a dollar for each time I heard “you’ll get exposure with our large pool of followers” or for each one of my photographs that was scrubbed of my watermarks and then reposted on another person’s page…I’d be pretty well off.

I was scrolling through Facebook on lunch one day and came across the sponsored ad of another CNC router outfit and after I finished watching it I thought this might be the opportunity I was looking for.
I spent the next few weeks researching all I could find on CNC woodworking. I enrolled in several woodworking courses at the local community college and took a few more at my local Woodcraft store.

Black Friday 2019 was the day I was to going purchase all of the tools and hardware to set up shop. While I was waiting for the doors to open at Home Depot I came across a comparison video between the CNC router I had originally planned to purchase and the Shapeoko 3XXL. Well… I bought everything that day except that other CNC router. I spent the next week or so researching the Shapeoko and then made the decision to purchase one after the Christmas holiday.
I originally thought I would be fine starting out with the XL and soon realized I was mistaken. Roughly 10 minutes after I posted my “Hello World” video to my Facebook page the requests began to flood in.

Based on the overwhelming responses/requests and the outstanding customer service I’ve received from the Carbide3D support team, I’m thinking CNC woodworking was the way to go.
Hoping in turn that I can bring some value to this community as I become more proficient and knowledgeable with CNC.

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I’m Dennis. Surigical assistant by day and tinkerer by night. I am learning to use my Shapeoko 3 xxl with a 7 watt JTech laser, while building a 100 watt CO2 laser on an 8x4 platform.

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m George, but more commonly Jay.

Got into electronics back in the early 60’s, in the 4th grade. Had a classmate show me how to salvage bits from old tube-based TVs and radios and build stuff like SW radios. Took all the electronics classes our high school had, and metal shop to make chassis. Old school.

My dad was an aerospace mechanical engineer who grew up a Montana farm boy. I learned early to fix just about anything, on the cheap, and we dabbled in some wood working too.

Out of High school, I did 4 years in the Coast Guard, mostly in Avionics and as an aircrew member, got married in 75, and got an AA in Electronics, leading to a career in biomedical equipment factory work and field service. My last job lasted 34 years, doing field service work on automated microbiology, virology and DNA hardware in a territory of the Western US and Canada.

Retiring at 62 left a lot of free time, so I got back into woodworking and electronics, but a lifetime as a fix-it guy left me with a terrible addiction. I never met a tool I didn’t want. Fast forward 6 months and a hefty chunk of my 401-k money and I had a garage wood shop that far outran my skills, but something was missing. All my biomed hardware was stepper motor based, so a CNC router really spoke to me.

So my Shapeoko 3-XL and Aspire are sort of the center of my shop, where I mostly make dumb humorous signs and Scottish heraldry plaques for our family, but my tool lust runs on. Added a J-Tech 7W laser with Lightburn software to the XL, and having great fun with that. Then I recently added wood turning, making mostly pens and small bowls. Which, like my signs, I don’t try to sell and mostly give them away. It’s the fun of doing it, not the money. A few weeks back I found another stepper-based hardware that spoke to me, so now there’s a Creality Ender 3 Pro 3-D printer, cranking out more fun but largely useless stuff.

But it all stretches my fading brain cells and keeps me amused. I long ago ran out of garage for any more counter space or work benches, so the 3D printer lives on my Shapeoko’s wasteboard, which perches on it’s own custom cart. Noise and dust control are an issue, and there’s an enclosure design rattling around in my head that may take shape soon. But I just saw this amazing 3-D resin printer on Amazon . . . . I keep telling our son, he’s gonna need a bigger garage.

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Hi everybody! I’m David, I live in Calgary, Alberta. I am currently educated and trained in the oil and gas industry, but it’s lost it lustre for me, which is how I wound up here. I wanted my own means to create neat stuff.

In April, I started hitting up the shop.carbide3d Website pretty hard and convinced myself to get an XXL. So for the last 5weeks I’ve been keeping busy. This thing is a blast.

David

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Greetings -

I’ve purchased the Shapeoko 3, despite lusting after the XL and XXL, space is an issue at the moment, and for me this is more about finding something to occupy my time and allow me a creative outlet.

I just finished my 29th year as a high school chemistry/physics teacher in Central Ohio and am also a professional photographer. I’ve dabbled in 3D printing for 8 yrs and CNC routers have been an interested for a while.

This is just another extension of spending my time as a life-long learner. I figure I’ll make a lot of sawdust and hope to be able to make a small amount of money with this as a second side-hustle.

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Hi David,
I also live in Calgary (NW) and have the XL upgrade from the Shapeoko 3. I have been at it for almost 3 yrs now and most of the experience has been really positive. If you have any queries for a local, I’d be happy to answer any questions I can.
Thanks,
Gerry

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Hello Everybody,
I just got a job working for Carbide3d doing tech support.

I really like the positive vibe in this place. A lot of creative like minded people here. I’ll try to assist anyone if they have any basic tech issues. But I’ll probably learn more from the community and archive posts. Seems like a great place! Cheers!

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Man, me too!

but…

Don’t let us fool you, we can use all the help we can get!!! :joy: :rofl: :joy: Welcome to the board!

edit: I would add to the “introduce yourself” portion of this thread, but I have shamelessly self promoted (and described) myself in a gallery post, already.

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Ill jump in. Hi everyone, Jarrad from southeast MN. I just do stuff, best way to describe it. Marine veteran, got in to defense contracting. Had a program where we had to reverse engineer a complex electronics package, got interested in this sort of thing doing that.

Wife has a small craft business, bought my Shapeoko because i got tired of manually cutting circles for her nursery signs. Its grown on me since. No expert at any of this, but what i know im happy to share and always looking to learn more. Ive got a glowforge also, and a full shop of other tools and equipment. Happy to open the shop up to other folks to come in snd collaborate, etc.

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I am Cullen Simpson and live just outside Savannah Ga. I got a Psychology degree back in the 80s which I never used except while in college. I worked with chimps and orangutans.

I have been focused on tech all my life and spent most of my career maintaining engineering design software at Gulfstream end eventually as a software architecture manager. I had a stint as a consultant working at various Aerospace and Defense companies and now am at Lockheed Martin.

I started woodworking as a hobby around 25 years ago and acquired lots of tools while I was making good consultant money. I mostly made furniture, that started when I bought a pool table and thought that the price of the chairs was nutty so I built my own. I have made entertainment centers, coffee tables, my daughters crib/daybed/full bed/loftbed. That’s all one thing with transitions. A nice bookcase and dresser to go with it.

Anyway, I always throughly the price of the CNC machines was nutty and space in my garage workshop was at a premium. Man I really miss my 1200 sqft shop I had in Florida. But late in 22 I started to get an interest and in early 23 I just happened to see a post on Craigslist for a Shapeoko Pro XXL for $1900 with lots of extras. The post had only been up 45 minutes. I talked to the guy and we worked a deal. He delivered from 2 hours away and got it set up and did a couple of test cuts. That was a great intro.

I have made a couple of signs and some coasters with inlay, some wood, some epoxy. I am learning a lot but still have a lot of things I want to try. Eventually I would like to sell enough things to have the hobby be self sustaining at least, but even better if it could pay for my daughter’s horse fascination.

I use CCPro and CM currently. I am no CC expert but I have a good grounding in CAD software so it isn’t foreign to me. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out a path to what I want do and it may not be the best but I get there. Or, I reach out to this forum.

I really love this group and the support attitude and the complete lack of trolls and flame wars. I am NOT a Facebook user but when my daughter sees me reading this forum she calls it my woodworking Facebook.

If there is anything I can do to help out someone in the southeast GA or SC area please reach out.
Though I am on the older side, my 3 kids are all young and keep me busy such that I don’t get as much machine time as I would like. I am sure once they are teens I will rarely see them though so enjoying it while I can.

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Hey Everyone
Name is Austin. I have a small guitar company called Lowborn Guitars based in Oregon.

I spent the first 10 years of my working career in precision metal sheet metal and moving into management and sales. I then moved into a machine shop where I was introduced to more traditional CNC machinery (precision sheet metal used CNC, but in a very different way).

I started guitar repair about 4 years ago as a side job after taking some classes as that was always my dream. Eventually I worked into building guitars with a router, bandsaw and a pile of templates. CNC came into my day job and became less intimidating and i immediately saw the ability to be more accurate, and spend my few hours dialing in finishing, fretwork, ect rather than pushing a router around.

I have a wife and 3 kiddos so time is the most valuable thing. The ability to have precision and walk away from the shop and still be producing is pretty incredible. I beat lymphoma about a year ago after living in the hospital for 6 months and it really put my time and work life balance into perspective. Do what I love. With who I love.

Anyways here are a couple pics of “hand built” guitars. Stay tuned for the CNC ones

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I have a number of college classmates in the Portland area that work for Intel & Tektronics (EE themselves, I’m an ME). So are you a Ducks or Beavers fan?

I suppose I should introduce myself as well. I have a degree in Mechanical engineering and have done product design, thermal & structural analysis, CNC programing & operation. While in college I took a machine shop course as a tech elective (basic manual lathe and 3-axis mill). For my senior project I “wrote” a post-processor for a table top CNC machine the school had. I say “wrote” but really I just used the Pro/E module Pro/Post & answered the questions (with data from the machine manual). The project included testing, a written report and a verbal presentation (which included a short video of the machine running my test parts). Manufacturing foam was used (as I was able to get it donated & it machines easily and fast) for my test pieces.

My current job is with a stone fabrication company and while most of the CNC work is simple 2D cutouts & router profiled edge I have machined 48"x20"x10" farmhouse sinks w/sloping drainboards as well as other fully 3D “millwork” (as it would be call in woodworking) including fireplace mantels, chair rail, baseboard, fireplace surrounds, etc. The software that came with the CNC machine (built in Italy) is AlphaCAM which is used a fair bit with commercial woodworking CNC as well as stone CNC machines. The machine has a 24 tool carousel and a 3.5x2m table (3500x2000mm) with 350mm Z travel. The machine uses a Siemens SINUMERIK 810D controller. Here are links to some of what I’ve done in stone Stone Block Sinks & Stone Fireplace Mouldings

I got my Shapeoko 4 probably close to 2yrs ago, but due to lack of time, space & other projects I actually haven’t had the chance to set it up :frowning: I have however started playing with both CC & Fusion360. Previously I have been using Onshape (an online solid modeling program similar to Solidworks) for making models for my 2 3D printers. I’m still getting used to the work-flow of Fusion 360 as it is significantly different than the 1999 version of AlphaCAM that came with the CNC I use at work. I’ve also started trying to edit the generic Siemens 810D post for Fusion360 for our machine at work so I can do in stone what people have been doing on their Shapeokos for Challenge #28 as I have had some issues getting topo STLs to load into AlphaCAM (it takes forever for it to process I I still don’t have any usable surfaces).

So here is to hoping I finish my workshop addition to the garage this summer (as well as my motor swap on my allroad & numerous house projects) :slight_smile:

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Nice work.

I signed up for OnShape but have not messed with it really yet. I have a fair amount of experience with CATIA and I am hoping that OnShape is closer to that than Sketchup is. I just can’t wrap my brain around the way Sketchup works.

My current employer uses all the major PLM/CAD platforms but is heaviest with Windchill/Creo so I figured I would give OnShape a try.

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Thank you! (+ blah blah to get to 20 char)

My son and I really enjoy Beavers Baseball

Hello y’all,
I’m a CNC programmer by trade, but I’ve never programmed for wood. Most of my work involves 5-axis machining in aluminum and steel. I have worked with wood however some 30+ years ago making fine quality roll top desks. I recently bought a Shapeoko 5 Pro + VND spindle in hopes of using that experience for hobby and who knows. Having said that, I’m slowly getting organized to where I can start on simple projects. I am however more interested in complex inlays like the one of a Banksy art someone posted above. I will probably be posting a bit in the future. Now, onto figuring out how to tram the spindle and level the waste board.
Cheers,
Peter

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Welcome.
What part of the country are you in?