A downcut tool will help a lot for bamboo or wood.
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Flattened an oak slab from a tree I felled in the front yard a few years ago to make a rough outdoor bench for my church. The bow ties were an afterthought (and my first). Next time I’ll use the S5P and get the inlays nice and tight.
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Here’s the most recent little project I’ve been toying with. A pocket sized little maze for down times and I want to avoid my phone. Main material is a paper micarta, tungsten carbide balls for the most minuscule weight gain over stainless and a 31.5mm diameter mineral crystal watch crystal. Was a good test of quick machining on a small scale on my Nomad Pro. Whole process takes about 18 minutes. I need to refine the seigaiha cutting on the reverse to clean up the cut and cut the time down dramatically. It alone was 25 extra minutes.
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This why i like tjis particular thread, always something to learn.
I have never come across micarta. After a quick google it looks like a paper composite in a resin. Looks like it machines really well, a bit like high density bamboo board. Resins can be tough on your bits.
Which did you use to get this level of detail.
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Wow. So you have a double maze? One going out with no exit and one going back in to the center? 
How small are those BBs? Looks like they could get stuck in the corners.
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There’s a wide variety of micarta variants and I believe I’ve used a fair number of them.
Paper is nice, cuts well and has some character to it from the aging/patina of the resin/thermoplastic.
Linen, I find more appealing visually. The texture is gorgeous and the warmth that generally accompanies a nicely aged piece of material is just beautiful. Make sure you have a fresh end mill though. It’s absolutely necessary to cut those cotton threads and not fray them.
Canvas or burlap micarta exists too for the times you need some big big texture, but I’m not much a fan. I think it looks gruff and unrefined.
On this particular project I used a .8mm two flute square end mill.
If you’d like to check out some really unique micarta, check out G-Carta It’s some really unique stuff and looks incredible on a knife, which is my trade.
Another I might suggest that often comes in larger stock sizes is Richlite. Richlite the company has designed the material for architectural applications but I’ve also seen it used in cutting boards and other smaller projects. Gorgeous stuff and comes with several sandwich layering options.
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No double maze.
Yet. I actually want to do a double that goes from front to back on the coin, but I think I’d like to upgrade to sapphire or recess the face of the crystals below surface to protect them when set on flat surfaces.
I stuck three tungsten carbide balls in there to either add to the frustration or challenge. They’re 1mm in diameter, really rather small. They haven’t gotten stuck on anything yet, though I may need to de-magnetize them. Carbide can gain a small amount of charge, and that might be effecting these, they are fond of each other.
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Made a small koa wood inlay of a petroglyph turtle in a walnut round tray.
Not sure if it was a fusion 360 glitch or what but when I used adaptive for the pocket in the simulation it showed the full pocket of the turtle cut out but in reality it missed some spots.
Oh well I added just a regular 2D cut single operation to correct it and that worked.
I did my usual 0.05” cut depth for the negative in the walnut. I made the koa wood turtle positive 0.08” thick because that’s what I had. I made the positive turtle scaled to 99% and added a .012” fillet to the side of the turtle that would be making contact with the negative to help it fit better. (Would have gone bigger but because of the shape that’s the max fusion 360 would me go).
Used my CA glue and my wood mallet to press the koa turtle into the walnut tray. It did crack in one spot which I figured it would but it’s hard to tell since it cracked in the same direction of the wood grain.
Mallet made on band saw not nomad but thought I’d show it off a little here anyways 
I want to try out using a V cutter and carbide create inlay feature next time.
Finished product sanded with random orbital 80 grit then some hand sanding with 150. Bees wax and food grade mineral oil mixture.
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Yep, there are a lot of different phenolic sheet types, and you would not be surprised at all to find out that there is a military spec (MIL-I-24768) that details a bunch of them.
I have made a couple of mallets. I hate wedges because they often come loose. So my mallet is similar to yours. I have two outside faces and two shorter pieces that are sandwiched between the outside faces and the handle. I made the handle a Y shape so I did not have to have any wedges.
I used 1/2" dowels to hold everything together.
If you compare the mallets one is slightly smaller. I was cutting out the two outside pieces with a contour and had a brain freeze and cut it inside instead of outside. So I just modified the other pieces and made a second mallet.
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More pro bono work for the Girl Scouts.
I live near Savannah which is the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low who was the founder of the Girl Scouts. These signs will join about 20 I have already made at the local camp named for the founder. It’s a 300+ acre island.
As with the last batch, the cutting was quick and simple. The painting, sanding, finishing was the pain.
The red signs are color core. They couldn’t decide which way the arrows should point so I cut both sides with one pointing left and one pointing right.
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Ohh those are nice! Yeah never thought about dowels that’s good idea to get away from the wedge
Continuing the discussion from What did you cut on your Shapeoko/ Nomad today?:
6ft Front Porch Sign On S5 4x4
(No tiling feature was used. Just 2 brain cells & pair of calipers)
Not anything great or fancy, just thought I’d share with all my C3D Family!
** Full discloser I did make a Y guide for the left side of my machine using the design (not the program) that Kevin uploaded to Cut Rocket & I just made those guides out of 3/4" Birch.
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I was asked to make an urn for a friend’s sister. Oak and Walnut. I used my Shapeoko with a Jtech laser to create the sides and used the CNC router to do the top.
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For the guide you made on the left of your machine, how is that holding up?
I recently made one, but after moving it from its original spot, it lost its squareness. It ends up being a little different everytime I move it.
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@wilmatos1989 How are you fastening / locating the fence to the machine? Just with bolts / screws?
Add a couple of dowels so it goes back in the same spot every time. 
I cut a strip that fits snugly between the MDF slats, machined the edge parallel to Y, and marked it so I put it back in the same spot every time. It does cover up the left T-slot, so it limits my work-holding a bit. But it installs quickly.
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I am mounting it just with bolts in the left most t-track. I guess I need something that puts it back exactly each time. This is tough because there is nothing to actually put locating/registration pins on the t track area off the MDF.
I am trying to maximize work area and use the machine’s limit switches as my zero reference.
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I had a removable fence…each time I put it back, I put a 1/32" bit in the collet and used the “Y” axis movement to set the fence up. Line up the front, jog to the middle; adjust; go to the end; adjust; back to the front. A little tedious, but you can get it pretty perfect relatively quickly and then lock it down.
Dowels as registration pins is a good idea…although, I would still check it with the gantry - since dowels and dowel holes can wear too.
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Mine has some slop each time I replace. I was thinking about having a piece on the bottom to slip between the MDF as described. I like the dowel idea.
Another option would be for the fence to be wide enough to touch the left rail and “register” off that each time. Given that the rail could be slightly out of alignment you would have to position the front of it at the same point each time.
Pins would probably be better though. I have some 1/4” steel pins that I may try. One advantage is that the fence could be put in different positions along Y and should in theory still be square.
I have also considered doing the holes and PVC that I have seen a lot of people do. Seems like that could also work as a left side fence with less fuss and also consuming less space on the machine.