Combining two things I really love - Jeeps and Woodworking

[bodhi]

I made these coasters a little bit ago for my upstairs neighbor, who always helps me when I need a hand with my several hundred pound woodworking tools. He currently has a 2017 Willy's 2 Door.

I thought you all might like seeing them. Once I am back in the woodshop after fully recovering post surgery, I will finally make a set for myself. I have made some Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics and Patriots onse for my friends and family as well, but these are still my favorites.

This set is walnut with epoxy inlays

[BlackNBlue-ISH]

Cool stuff Mark!

[MDSRACING398]

This is still the coolest! Atleast in my opinion

[bodhi]

Does your Jeep still look like that Mark?

[MDSRACING398]

It Does kind of but it isn't mine anymore.

[64wildcat]

Looks great! Nice work!

[Frank]

Nicest thing since I got this BEA-utiful painting of Mona . Looks awesome Mark

[pirahnah3]

First those are amazing, great work!

I gotta ask what your using for it? wood CNC? Router? something else?

[bodhi]

Thanks,

illustrator and fusion 360, CNC for the shapes, then epoxy, then sanding.

[pirahnah3]

Heard a lot of good things bout fusion 360, when I was laying out my shop I left a corner for a CNC to go in....but I dont know if I will ever do that or not at the moment.

[Hank]

bodhi,
What are you using for a CNC? I've been looking around at them, would love to hear more about your setup.

[bodhi]

Hi Hank,

I started with a borrowed shapeoko 2 from a friend, rehabbed it, and learned the ropes, then bought a Shapeoko XL, and used that for a year. FInally picked up a CNC Router Parts (now called Avid cnc) Benchtop Pro 2424 of a guy on craigslist last year.

I have used it a ton, learned a lot over the last two years. Fusion 360 was the biggest hurdle, as I have been doing graphic design for 20 years, it was always just 2d based, so it took me several months to get confident with fusion 360 and 3d work.

This was picking it up

I have seen built a rough enclosure for it

[bodhi]

If you are shopping for cnc's, I recommend screw drive ones if you can swing it. The belt driven ones are much less expensive, but they are not quite as accurate. But if you are unsure of how much CNC work you want to do, starting with a Shapeoko 3 series is pretty decent. I made over 400 items on my Shapeoko XL, and the controller software is free and really easy to use.

I would stay away from the ones that are controlled with a dedicated breakout box, like the one from Next Wave Automation that you would get at Woodcraft or Rockler. They just are too expensive and not a good value.

If you have more questions feel free to ask

A few other things I made, these are salt cellars.

[Hank]

Thanks for the info, that's very helpful.
The software shouldn't be too much of a hurdle, I've been in the 3D printing game for a few years, F360 is a pretty good friend of mine
Love those salt cellars, they're fantastic, and the details you're getting on some of those other projects is incredible.

[bodhi]

Great, if you are good with F360, everything else will come easily. The cam paths the F360 creates have been solid for me. I often use a 1mm end mill to get the crazy thin details. It is slow, and loud, and as long as I am careful handling those little bits, I can use them for several projects. They cost about $3.00 each, so breaking one isn't as devastating as breaking a bigger $25-$50 end mill.

I sold about 40 salt cellars on Etsy before christmas, would have been more if I didn't have a real day job

I removed the water cooled spindle and put my bosch router on instead, the water cooled spindles don't push the chips out of the way cause there is no fan, and I ended up with burning embers inside of a few pieces. So if you are mostly using a CNC for wood, you either need a constant source of air blowing on the work, like with a big air compressor and some line-loc stuff, or a air cooled spindle/router and a big dust proof enclosure like I made.