December 22, 2021 Shop Log

Posted on December 23, 2021 by kietcallies

Because of the size of the Big Island, I had to be a bit more creative in getting a piece of material large enough. I found some 2.25” thick black walnut stock, cut it in half, square off one of the lengths on each piece and glued them together to create a large enough work piece.

While shopping at Goby, I decided to stock up on some beautiful pieces I found in the end cuts section. I will allow ideas to marinate.

Now while carving the Big Island, I encountered catastrophe. The belt pulley on the X-axis ball screw of the X-Carve broke off, leaving me with no movement on the X-axis.

I quickly made a call to Inventables, and it looks like the fix will be a swapping out of the entire gantry. Inventables is shipping out a replacement, but the disappointment is less than palatable. I am going to need to figure out how to change out the gantry.

December 18, 2021 Shop Log

Posted on December 23, 2021 by kietcallies

My first attempt to carve the Hawaiian Islands Chain was to have it fit all on the bed of the X-Carve Pro, so it had to be scaled within 48”x48” area. However, I felt that some of resulting islands were too small, and the overall look felt underwhelming.

The problem in need of a solution was to figure out how to accurately position the islands in a space that was larger than the bed of the X-Carve Pro. My solution was to create 30”x22” indexed tiles with cut-out outlines of the islands in their respective locations. The tiles could be laid out onto a surface (such as a wall or table) and the individual island carvings would be placed in the cut-outs. I chose 30”x22” tiles because it with the size of my shipping boxes (if I ever got around to making them available for sale). This way I could scale the islands as big as the bed of the X-Carve Pro if desired.

My first attempt will be the island chain scaled at 72” wide. The results are impressive.

I have not gotten to carving the Big Island yet, which when completed will be about 16”x19”.

November 14, 2021 Shop Log

Posted on November 14, 2021 by kietcallies

I finished an order for some custom national park signs.

In between coats of paint and sealer, I did some experimenting with my picket sign-holding Sasquatch design.

The best indicator of skill is the ability to consistently reproduce results. I made another attempt at carving the island of Maui, hoping to learn from my previous mistakes. I am pleased with my result.

February 10, 2021 Shop Log

Posted on February 11, 2021 by kietcallies

The latest few days I have been working on designing a LEGO minifig display, and here is my first attempt

One of my biggest misgiving about this first attempt is how I oriented the LEGO brick I used to hold the minifig on the display. I positioned the 4×4 brick so that the minifig would be attached to the brick at the back of the legs rather that from the bottom of the feet. The issue is that this doesn’t allow the minifig to stand straight up, but is bent slightly forward. Back to the drawing board…

Rather than orientating the mounting LEGO brick vertically, I needed to orientate it horizontally. However, the 1/2” MDF board was not going to provide enough depth. To get more depth, I made the display out of two 1/2” MDF patterns and glued them together. I also created a paper backing (think of it as wallpaper) for each minifig space, because of the difficulty to sand and paint the inside of each space.

January 3, 2020 Shop Log

Posted on January 3, 2021 by kietcallies

I reused the wheel base for the dust collector, which I no longer needed since I mounted it to the wall. I added sides to the base to create a rolling bin that fits perfectly underneath the RTJ-1390I Laser Cutter. I will use it to store scrap material for the laser cutter.

Sindhu Kuhle and Patty Barrett came over to finish their quote signs this morning. Today they applied finishing wax to their signs. They went from their ideas laid out on Easel to a physical sign in two classes. They seemed pleased with the end results.

I started cutting out the fly rod rack from the Oregon white oak boards on the X-Carve CNC Router