Well, I wish I could say this work was more devoted to woodworking than it was, but too many other facets of work and life intruded. I was out several nights this week and then Saturday was taken up doing work around the property. Sunday opened up a bit, so I took advantage of what time I had.
The CNC club met Thursday night. So, while I wasn't working myself I was watching and talking about woodworking. A demo was done of 2 sided cutting with V-Carve then run on the Axiom. (kinda wish I had this one! I don't work here, just who I know sells them.) I liked the technique and have to try it out. Plus, i would love to have a water cooled spindle - they are so quiet it's eerie. With one of those and the Festool CT26 I wouldn't need hearing protection CNC'ing. Plus we got to see some cool engravings on acrylic with a diamond bit and then lit with LEDs that looked awesome.
Sunday I was in the shop and decided that the test of cutting a cipher wheel with the Oramask went so well I should just finish it. So I wrapped it with walnut moulding. I do this with a 22 1/2 degree cutting jig attached to my table saw sled. I cut all the pieces to rough size, then I cut one side of each edge piece to the angle, then I can set it in place and mark where to cut the other side. I use the next piece as a test to see if I was cut exactly - you'll feel a little ridge if it's too long. Plus, you can look at the inside edge and see if there is any shadow meaning it's a bit long. The jig lets me shave off really small amounts if needed. Too short, well, then your stuck, no fixing that except with a new piece so be careful. Some glue and some blue tape, wait a few hours and they look great. Now I have to decide what new symbols I want to put on the inner ring. I'd like to do hieroglyphs or constellations.
I worked on the design of the main cipher wheel and discovered I can make the outer ring letters a bit bigger. I did this in V-Carve, created a new .tap file for cutting and then made another. It looks good. I did all the cutting and just have to do the paint filling. One bit of the logo on the back had the Oramask come free but I think I can fix that by cutting a small piece, sticking it on and knifing it to the exact size. I had the spare blank so I figured why not have another.
I swapped out the 27mm hose on the CT26 and instead used the 2 1/4" hose from the old shop vac. I get much better pickup this way. Still running it through the Dust Deputy. On the CNC there was only the dust that was left right in the cut, most of the rest was captured.
Cut down an old apple tree, so that sort of woodworking. Needed to swap out the chain and the big saw and then it went through like butter. Well, until I popped the chain off in a cut and might have bent it as I couldn't put the chain back on. This is my life, just when I'm getting somewhere something dumb happens to derail it all. I'll have to check the sharpener to see if this is fixable of the chain is trash.
That's the week. Kind of light, but that's how they go sometimes.
Until next week, stay dusty!