I was surprised to find that, as I started, I couldn’t even view the website because the hosting company had updated some software without updating all the requisites so the site didn’t even work!  Sigh…

In any case, if you’ve been one of the ones who have been checking in, I apologize for letting this languish and will try to do better in the future!!!

The map covers most of Penobscot Bay, from Owl’s Head to the mouth of the Penobscot river at Sandy Point, with Camden on the West side, Castine on the East.  You can easily make out Belfast, Camden, and Rockport Harbors, Lincolnville Beach,  Vinalhaven & North Haven, Islesboro, and Castine as well as the coastline around Searport.

Corner view of box with carved terrain map.

Opposite corner of box with terrain map.

View showing interior of box with Mahogany lining.

Top view of terrain carving of Penobscot Bay on Corian.

Bandaid Dispenser positioned near the Workshop to Office door!

The box was made of 3mm acrylic, cut on my CO2 laser and ‘melded’ together with acrylic solvent.

Part of that is due to the waste board that I have installed on the bed.  That consumes about 19mm of height.  But even accounting for that, most of the Z travel capability is unusable because the Z Post hangs so low.

After exploring various options for getting more Z range, I decided that lifting the whole top transport assembly 50mm would give me a enough range without introducing much risk or losing a noticeable amount of rigidity.

So, using my NEW Mini Mill, I was able to fabricate the pieces to add a rigid lift.  Here’s the new look:

Whole Router transport lifted 50mm.

Lift Corner Block

Lifter Parts

The good/bad part of this style is that most of the woodwork is curved, with very few straight lines.  I concluded that, to keep the proper flow and sweeps AND still have all the interlocking joinery line up, the framework, at least, needed to be cut on a CNC Router.  Cool, I’ve got one of those

To make a VERY LONG story shorter, I did some trial cuts of some of the longest parts in January of 2019.  From these experiments, I realized that the CNC router needed to be larger to reliably make the parts.  Consequently the project languished until I finally upgraded my CNC Router to a larger, more solid, one this year.  This spring I made the base, then made the top, and left the pieces to cure over the Summer while we were in Maine.  When we returned, and got some time, once Kate & Paul’s Wedding reception was completed, I did the final finishing, assembly, and installed it in our Living Room.  I’m quite pleased with the result:

Completed Coffee Table installed in Living Room.

Coffee Table right view, ready in shop.

Coffee Table, Left view, ready in shop.

Coffee Table base, all assembled, ready for finishing.

To cover prototyping and last minute additions and changes, I made over 200 blanks.  Good thing, too!  There were a few cutting mistakes, some name misspellings, some last minute additions (subtractions weren’t a problem), marriages, divorces, and even a ‘he’ becoming a ‘she’…

Here a couple of ‘random’ examples of the tags I made…

Examples of the name tags I made for Kate’s Wedding reception. The stands are made from HDPE that I machined in my workshop. The gold one is after Paul painted all the ones used at the reception. Pretty fancy!

So, I decided to make a Corian Carved top on a wood turned box as a gift for one of my sisters.

Completed Carved top box.

Magnolia Box opened.

Carving the Corian top.

Turned Cherry box showing inside and back side of carved top.

This came out so well, I had to do another!

Turned Box with Carved top

CircleFish Carved Corian top, Maple wood turned box

I looked into a couple of really inexpensive units based on the popular 3018 CNC platform.  Unfortunately, the two systems I tried all suffer from a woefully inadequately stiff gantry.  Any attempt to machine something that’s either hard or trying to cut quickly produces sloppy errors and poor cut quality due to shifting tool bit during the cuts.

Consequently, I decided to go back to OpenBuilds and get their C-Beam 1060.  It’s larger that the 3018 and also much stiffer.  The general design concept is the same however.  The Gantry doesn’t move in the Y direction, but the work is held on a moveable platform to introduce Y displacement.  This adds to the gantry stiffness and makes for a simpler Y transport.  The downside is that the material is now held on a moving platform limiting the weight and size of the material that can be cut.  These limits are fine for the Little House in the Village and this makes a useful tool to play with during the ‘cool’ Summers

Here is what the unit looks like.  I’m sure I’ll have more to show in the future!

Smaller CNC Router for the Little House in the VIllage.

Our granddaughter loves it!

3D Edge Lit, Dolphin Jumping