What did you cut on your Shapeoko/ Nomad today?

I have been using the PVC board from the big box store for years. There’s been discussion on whether it is foam or solid core. But for me it doesn’t matter what its called it works well for my needs. It comes in different sizes and also 1/2 and 3/4 inch thickness. The 1/2 is smooth on both sides and 3/4 is smooth on one side and wood pattern on the other. Lowes, Menards, and Home Depot all carry versions of this product. Royal Building Products seems to be the most popular product that is stocked. The 1/2 seems to warp a little when cut but i still use it occasionally. Even though it is slightly rough in the core it still cuts very smooth and looks fine when painted. I just use Rust-Oleum satin or semi gloss spray paint. As far as degrading over time i totally disagree with this. I have had signs up outdoors for years and have never seen any degradation of the product. Of course anything outdoors would have to be repainted at some point. But the product itself is stable and extremely weather resistant.

I’ve even glued pieces of PVC sheet together for larger projects. I use standard PVC plumbing cement and it bonds almost instantly. I’ve taken a hammer to pieces I’ve glued up and couldn’t break the bond.

When cutting 1/4 inch bits work the best with almost no cleanup. Pretty much the same with 1/8 bits but i always do several passes because if you don’t get the cut speed correct the cut areas tend to clog up a little with the plastic and need cleaned up. 1/16 bit is the hardest to work with but it can be done.

I’v tried to run PVC board through my plainer and that didnt go well. Other than that I love it

15 Likes

Here’s my process for finishing PVC

I just use regular RustOleum indoor/outdoor spray paint for the cut parts. Then with a small 4 inch foam roller paint the top coat with Acrylic semigloss outdoor paint . Then i apply a clear coat to help protect the finish. No masking is done. When doing the top coat don’t put too much paint on the roller and don’t press down too hard so the paint doesn’t get into the cut part.

Sometimes I do put a piece of clear shelf liner paper on top of the project before i cut everything to make painting a little easier. If the design is very intricate i don’t this because its a pain to peal off little pieces of the film after spraying the cut parts. Although it works well for projects that don’t have a lot of detail like the house sign

  1. Apply clear shelf liner to project
  2. Cut Project
  3. Spray cut part with dark rustoleum spray paint. Flat
  4. Dab off extra overspray paint with a soft cloth
  5. Let Paint Dry for a bit. It dry’s pretty fast
  6. Remove clear shelf liner
  7. Roll on top coat
  8. Dry with heat gun on lowest setting (Dry’s paint so i can immediately apply second coat if needed) Skip this step and go to step 10 if you don’t think a second coat is needed
  9. Roll on second top coat. Air dry.
  10. Air drying lets the paint settle on the final coat and gives a nicer finish than using the heat gun
  11. Let dry a couple hours and apply Clear Coat Finish
6 Likes

Finally made some progress today, somehow I overwrote some file with G code and had to recreate. Bought some 24”x48” PVC board from HD this week. Made a reference for the Y2 axis for tiling later . I also intend to make some clamp material with rest of the material. Made a file for PVC pipe fence for the front of the machine. Test cut one and I need to tighten up the rest a couple thousands. Good exercise in CC/CM.

7 Likes

I recently did my first tiling job. I made a side rail out of cherry and jogged the spinning router down the edge to true it up to the router to be square.

12 Likes

What’s the size? How did you center it perfectly on the circle? Or did you cut it out of bigger stock? Upload pic once done painting.loce the various depths :slight_smile:

I’ll post a painted photo, but it’s waiting for some 70 year old ladies who are not very mobile. It’ll be May.

Centered as best as I could on a premade 18" round from Menards. Likely not machine perfect centered but closer than an eye could notice.

1 Like

Jonathan, those all look really great and clean. Will you explain your powder coat process? I’ve only seen powder coating “sealed” with a laser.

I recently got a laser and wanted to try the powder coating but the air assist on my laser can’t be turned off and that would blow the powder everywhere.

Some videos on YouTube showed folks using the laser for the engrave and then filling with the powder out of the machine and using a heat gun to set the paint. I tried that and it works.

If I didn’t mask then the paint would get into the surrounding grain which was oak and therefore bad for this case. It was too deep to sand.

When I did mask just getting the masking off after heating the paint was a pain in the very detailed areas but that would likely have been easy to sand off.

I’ve used a laser to heat the powder coating (no air assist) by raising my laser about an inch and then turning down the power as well. You have to play around with that if you want to use a laser.

Because of the volume of the project with plaques, I didn’t want to tie up my CNC with the step of going back and using the laser to heat the powder coat. Here is what I did:

  1. Mask the plaque with laser masking paper. I’ve done this with the plaque having a laquer finish and also with it just being bare wood.
  2. Laser engraving
  3. Add powder coat to engraving using something like a credit card. (I have some thin aluminum business cards which work well. I like using my finger to finish up filling in the powder so I don’t accidentally lift the masking.)
  4. Using a heat gun at low setting keeping the gun far enough away so not to blow away the powder. As the powder begins to bond I get closer with the heat gun with the higher setting. (Sometimes additional powder coating is needed to get the look I want.)
  5. Remove masking (If I have a laquer finish on the wood I can easily scrap any powder that may have gotten under the masking. If I have bare wood, I can easily sand the wood because the powder coat sinks into the engraving and I don’t have to worry about messing up the finish of the powdercoat.
4 Likes

Jonathan, do you have any trouble, like Cullen implied, with overheating the mask to the point of it sticking or worse, melting?

Thanks for explaining your process!

Hi fellow cnc enthusiastics. I just want to share few pieces of my work. I will appreciate your opinion.

25 Likes

@firefighter, Good looking work there!!

Is that Czechia, Peter? Are you shoveling snow also?

Im from Slovakia. this year just a bit of shoveling.

1 Like

This is amazing. I’m itching to build one for my old first car.

1 Like

I use paper masking for laser engraving, which doesn’t melt. The masking is not gooey sticky. The key is to make sure you remove as much of the extra powder coat as possible before heating. If I have residue after removing any masking that I use either from using my router or laser, I use a touch of mineral spirits.

Would that paper masking work if I wanted to power coat an engraving on a aluminum part? Can you link to the masking your using?

1 Like

https://a.co/d/g5ZstQL

That is the exact same stuff I use on the laser. It’s really good.

When did the powder coat test before I think I used the blue stuff. I will try it again using this material.