CNC Mill Build - Intro

Ever since I found out about computer controlled production, I've wanted one of the machines for myself. 

Start up projects like the MakerBot (my first love) have made it much easier for anyone to get into digital production. But The $1000 price tag was still far too much for me seeing as I was still a student.

Image credit: BrePettis.com

During my time at uni I had access to a laser cutter, which was great, but limited to 2D production, and I used the Shapeways service to get a few 3D models printed. But found the price tag prohibitive and the 2 weeks of waiting between design and product was painful, and ruined one of the fundamental principles of digital production*.

But in my third year of uni I got it into my head that I was going to build a CNC mill. 
I did a lot of research and made a bill of materials. My aim was to build the whole thing for under £200. Long story short, I got the mechanics working (sort of) then ran out of steam.
The beast is currently disassembled in a box and may be worth it's own (rather depressing) post, it just wasn't going to be accurate enough for me.


Jump to October 2012 and for the first time in a long time I have a job and then stumble upon project Shapeoko. An open source kit that aimed to get you up and running for $300.

And just when I started looking at how I would get all the parts in the U.K I found the eShapeoko! Someone in Europe was selling kits, so almost immediately I ordered one.


Because the project was new they were still having problems sourcing all the parts but finally in mid January this rather small, but tantalisingly heavy package arrived at the door.

eShapeoko #23

Individually labelled parts bags. Almost more exciting than the actual machine.

Here's everything that came with the kit. Lots of lasercut steel, several lengths of Makerslide (more on that later) and various other bits of hardware.


I wanted to paint my kit to protect it, but mostly so it would look cool. I had a lot of black spray paint, and only a bit of red (left over from my Red Dwarf phone). I think that dyeing all the nylon spacers may have been a step too far, but I guess I was just over excited.

I may never get it running, but it's damn well going to look sexy!

The only other bit of prep is tapping the ends of the Makerslide. 

Makerslide is a new bit of hardware that was originally a kick-starter project by Bart Dring. It's similar to a standard aluminium extrusion, used in many designs that need to be strong light and inflexible. The key difference is that Makerslide has a set of V rails on it, which allows it to be used as the primary linear motion system as well as the main structural support which makes it ideal for small (or quite large) machines that need linear motion.



Well the colour scheme's all done, now I suppose I actually have to put it together. 

In my next post I begin assembling the kit.



* I think the direct link between designing on a computer and then very quickly being able to hold it in your hand, assess it and make changes is one of the best things about this technology.
However I still think Shapeways is a great service and I've always been really happy with their parts. It's still probably the best way to for newcomers to experience digital production without having to spend hundreds on getting set up. As well as the fact that the machines they use are far better than any home setup and give the option of printing in all sorts of cool materials.  

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Dome

Dome

Originally Posted 20-Aug-2008

The dome was pretty much like applying the curved cheek sections. It was fine as long as you took your time.

I was farily happy with how the whole thing was going, all praise to WOF* and his flawless templates.

Looks pretty good right?

Until you  look at it from above.

Hmm.....

Not sure what went wrong there**

Nothing that can't be solved with a bit of newspaper ;)

* WizardofFlight a member of thedentedhelmet.com who provided the amazing templates I'm using for this build.

**It seems I printed out the wrong templates, how was I to know there were different ones for European printers.

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Cheeky?

Well they can't all be winners, I'm too tired for punning.

Cheeks

Originally Posted 20-Aug-2008

Several steps missing here.
Cut out cheek areas and added the plates. Then added the dome arches. 

The cheeks took some time but I followed Antman's instructions and am very pleased with how they came out. If you're trying this leave a good couple of hours, as you need to hold each section, letting it dry before moving along the line.

Also the top visor part has been cut out ('cos I wanted to try it on)

Hellboy Corpse Locator - First Finished Piece

The original item was cast up in polyester resin, gilded with Rub 'n Buff and weathered with pigmented plaster. Leaving me with my first finished piece.

Completed: 10-Feb-2012

I was very happy with my first attempt but over the coming months I made almost 15 of these and I'd like to think each one was a little better.

The following posts are an amalgamation of various different build ups, logically ordered. Most of it is written as a tutorial.

The Build Up 

Originally posted: 25-Jun-2012

This is one full kit of parts

The main pieces are cast in polyurethane resin, and the dome cast in a clear polyester resin.





First up is pretty standard clean up, removing flash and filling in lil' bubbles.

Occasionally one or two of the tiny thorns won't be properly formed, so they'll need fixing. This is much less of a problem with new kits, since I changed the mould.
You can use bondo, but given how small they are I prefer to use milliput, which is how I sculpted the original.

Also the side of the compass at the top of the mould is prone to sub surface bubbles, you can just paint over them but, for a long lasting paint job, I prefer to open them up and fill them with bondo. 

When cleaning up the seam on the lid don't go overboard sanding it completely smooth, there is supposed to be a linear texture running round the edge, so don't go taking it all off.

The same can be said for building this up in general. Don't go OTT trying to smooth things out like you might on other builds. Any texture you leave looks great when you dry brush it with gold, and just looks a bit off and fake if you try to make it perfectly smooth.

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Doesn't Hold Water

Forming the Bucket

In the last post I just had a few pictures of my first attempts at making the ear pieces.
This time I begin actually making the bucket.

19-Aug-2008

Unfortunatley the largest helmet pieces won't fit onto the A3 bits of card I salvaged from sketch books, so I went to an art shop and bought a large A1 piece ( 4x size of A3 ) of cardboard (£2) and some more, stronger PVA (£3).

Which meant I could make the main helmet piece.

I don't really have a decent set of clamps so to hold this together while drying I used a combination of Quick Grips (yellow things), G - clamps, rubber bands, and for the hard to reach spot at the bottom I clamped it with a pair of rare earth magnets. :D

Basically whatever you can find.

PVA is definatly the best glue for this, easy to use, strong and inexpensive.

As long as you don't get the watered down stuff, meant only for paper.

The next part is poorley documented (starting to see a pattern here :s ) because I was frantically trying to get the mask to stick.

This shows the mask attached to the helmet and the wooden blocks clamped to flatten out the ear areas.

As I've said the hardest part was getting the mask to stick on evenly. The clamps I have only allow you to reach about 10cm from each edge, I needed more magnets really, but I had to make do.

That's all for now, next time I'm working on the cheek sections.

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Intro

So far this has just been repostings of my Hellboy Corpse Locator project.
What follows is still old work, it's a project that I started over 4 years ago, a Boba Fett helmet built entirely out of cardboard.  I've been stuck on the painting stage for the past few years, but hopefully posting all the old photos will give me the motivation to finally finish it.

Boba Bucket

Originally posted: thedentedhelmet.com 18-08-2008

Sady this is before I started taking loads of pictures. 

For making my helmet I'm using 2mm fibreboard type stuff, which is actually the stuff on the back of sketch books. So for these first pieces I just printed out the templates and began cutting out the pieces.

The primer was a solvent based primer I found in my shed claiming ' good for wood and metal'

Unless you're picky I reckon almost any primer will work on cardboard with fairly good results, and definitely anything made for mdf will work.

19-08-2008

As you can see the edges aren't quite as sharp as they could have been. In my constant refusal to buy any proper stuff I was sanding these using a fairly rough file, and some old sanding blocks I found.

The biggest problem I had was when I was clamping layers together. It was hard to find a flat surface in my room, and they often skewed during drying. (I have a workbench in my shed, but this is England I'm not freezing my arse off out there all day)

19-08-2008

My favourite thing about this method is that, however bad it initially looks, you just cover it in polyfiller and get a nice smooth finish.

Again whilst rooting around the shed I found some old polyfiller, from the 80's, it was grainy, had lumps and came in a tub not a tube. But it seemed alright and has served me well so far. 

Next I went and got some proper materials so I could actually start making the bucket.

Hellboy Corpse Locator - Weaving with Epoxy Putty

Previously I created the dome, this post shows the creation of the main body, focussing on how the vine details were sculpted.

Originally Posted 18-Feb-2012

The main body was constructed out of layers of grey cardboard, just like before, nothing too complicated.

I tried to add a 1mm step to help me place the detailing later. But it was a bit uneven, that's what comes from designing in a computer. It's only worth designing to a tolerance you can achieve with the tools at hand.

Here you can see the beading added to the underside.

And a close up of the inside detailing, I tried really hard to copy reference for these bits and I'm pretty happy with the way it came out.

This is definitely one of the odder ideas I've ever had. 
Epoxy putty has a 3-4 hour working time so I had to work fast, most of the time was spent trying to roll long, consistent 'sausages', which I did using a sheet of perspex.

I then put all the strands in their starting positions and began to weave, because the rolling had taken a good 90 minutes I actually didn't have too much trouble with the putty trying to stick to itself.

I didn't do stage by stage on the side detailing, but it was a similar process. I sculpted the eyes first then did the vines around those. 
This picture shows it after filling and a quick prime, I quite like the odd ivory/porcelain look of it : )


Long post today, almost done.

In the next post you can see the first finished piece.