CNC Boxes

[Tony Joyce]

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These are a few boxes I've done recently. The first group is about 3-1/2" X 4-3/4" X 1-1/4". The rest are about 5-1/4" X 7-1/4" X 1-1/2". Designed in Aspire. All cuts including the catches, hinge mortises and screw holes for the hinges done on the CNC. The v-carving is filled the last one with epoxy(white).

[Mick A Martin]

Nice work Tony, great idea.

Mick

[Mark Johnston]

Tony,
That is really nice. You said the v-carving is filled with epoxy white, did you fill it then sand off the excess on the black and white? The one box has a blue liner, is that sprayed on or felt that's cut out?
Thanks for sharing.
Mark

[Tony Joyce]

Thanks for the comments. The Bubinga box's v-carve is filled with casting resin which is epoxy. I was hoping to get a pearl effect, but I added too much white dye. The Curly maple is filled with a pore-o-pac grain filler(not blk although it looks it). The epoxy is put on with a syringe and is sanded down after drying. The grain filler is wiped down after drying, any excess left is cleaned off with a naphtha dampened rag. If you don't want any of the grain filler on the wood you need to put clear coats on first. Both have a final finish put on over the fillers.

The liners are made by making a print out of the outline of the interior pocket on card stock and glueing it to felt, cut out with scissors, then contact glued in the box.

[David Warkentin]

Beatiful job, Tony. Which cnc do you have?

[Gene Crain]

Very nicely done. Thank you for posting those great ideas!

[Tony Joyce]

Thanks for the compliments. The router is actually my boss's, but I get to use it for any projects I want to do, especially since I'm the only one who runs it. It is a 4'X8' "Precision Automated" a now defunct company. The good think is most all the parts are off the shelf items. The controller software is WinCNC so we are not completely abandoned. It's a fairly decent machine. Oh and it has a spindle with tool-changer(6). Tool-changers are Great! We have a used Shop Sabre(6'X12') on the floor at work now. I wish I could afford it, we have it priced less than half of a new one.

[Jay Maiers]

Good stuff Tony.
I've been thinking about that sort of an inlay for my tool drawers at work. French fit? Anyhow, I've got a bunch of measuring tools and such, and would really like to get them organized. How did you determine the outlines of the tools? I've been thinking about scanning them in small batches and using the image as an tracing template in AutoCAD. The down side to that plan is tons of room for error. I'm running Enroute and could try a rastor to vector conversion, but the same problem exists.

Thanks,
Jay M

[Tony Joyce]

Jay,
I drew these from measurements I did. To do precise fitting I would trace an outline of the tool and scan it, open it in Aspire and trace it, then toolpath. It's pretty straight forward. If I wanted to check the accuracy I might save the traced vector and print it out to verify size, before I actually cut it.

When you trace the tool you might want to add a scale(legend) on the paper to use as a reference when you do the vector trace.

Tony Joyce

[Jay Maiers]

Jay,
I drew these from measurements I did. To do precise fitting I would trace an outline of the tool and scan it, open it in Aspire and trace it, then toolpath. It's pretty straight forward. If I wanted to check the accuracy I might save the traced vector and print it out to verify size, before I actually cut it.

When you trace the tool you might want to add a scale(legend) on the paper to use as a reference when you do the vector trace.

Tony Joyce

Thanks Tony. I was afraid you'd say that...

I laid some of the components on a scanner yesterday just to see what would happen. I got great outlines of the parts where they touch the glass, but there's some crazy perspective going on for the parts of the tools that are off the glass, even by 1/2". The head of my combination square gave me precise outlines except for the web area. That portion was all kinds of distorted. Given the quantity of tools that I have to do, I can see this project taking a back seat for a little while
Jay

[Steve Stram]

Make a box twice the height as the thickness of what you want to scan. It can be of anything (cardboard works fine) to cover the scanner glass and not leak any light. (I have used the window seal insulation around the edges that touch and put a weight on top.) Use turner tape or carpet tape to hold the tool to the box away from the glass. I use Corel Trace to get the image and then convert it to a vector (cmx) using "centerline". It can then be saved as dxf. It isn't perfect at that point, but the proportions and outline should be good. Depending on what you want there could be plenty of noise removal with the dxf.

Steve.

[Dan Hintz]

Make a box twice the height as the thickness of what you want to scan. Use turner tape or carpet tape to hold the tool to the box away from the glass.

I can't think of a reason to do this... care to explain?

[Steve Stram]

If it is in contact with the glass then you get the distortion that Jay had with 3D items. I picked this tip up from people who take "pictures" of flowers or jewelry where they want a background that they can erase in photoshop or other editing software.

Steve.