When I lent my services to a collegue who was working on a film about 12 years ago, I was introduced to the world of cnc. I remember watching this huge machining centre milling out a slab of mdf and turning it into a fantastic set of gears. I knew that it would have taken me hours to achieve the same thing with traditional power tools. I decided then that I would invest in a cnc router for my own business Oxenham Design. At that time I could turn on a computer, but even to check email seemed like a crazy set of operations. I persevered and learned every piece of relevant software I could get my hands on. I am now fortunate enough to be using Vectric's ASPIRE software, and Techno cnc routers, which has helped us to create some amazing projects, both in part, or in full. I thought that this blog would be a great place to share "behind the scenes" adventures with the software, materials and equipment we use, as well as the projects we build.

Friday 28 June 2013

Go Climb the Mountain Little Guy, I'm growing Tired of You!

While I was busy laying out the cut files for the miniature party cabin that resides at the finish line of our little game, Jody got the 2 hikers all painted up. I think she's going to do a bit more, but they're pretty much done.

I exploded the sides off the little model cabin in Hexagon. I actually used a combination of the original building, and the building that was trimmed by the surrounding geometry of the rocks on the base.

After I had the sides exploded, I exported them out as a dxf file for import into corel. I hate dxf files, I think they're antiquated and frustrating. Plus, all the curves get broken into facets.
Once the file was in corel, I quickly cleaned it up, and added the little windows. Lamina design was essential for flattening out the curved roof that rests against the jagged mountain rocks. This "should" be as close as possible to fitting against the rocks. I'll test it tomorrow!
 Once the building was scribed for wood siding, corners mitered, and glued up, I was able to test fit it. Perfect! I had to remove a tiny bit of the mountain to allow the left side of the door to fit, but I was expecting it.

 The next step was to get all the window trim , and roof pieces cut from .060" styrene. The roof will get strip shingles, so it will look thick and very coarse. I want the shingles slightly out of scale for the house, which should look great.
I was also putting off solving the drive motor assembly, but had to deal with it today! We're using power window motors for this job. These always seem be what I turn to. They're pretty cheap, have gobs of torque, and only really need about 5 amps at 12 volts, under heavy load. I was going to make a rigid pvc collar that would fit the splines on the shaft, but by milling down the mounts on the gear-box, I could use the sprocket right on the metal gear shaft.
I had to drill out the sprocket, and tap it for a set screw that will clamp it to the flat spot I ground onto the motor shaft. Way less work than my original plan!
And on top of that, we finished the cleanup of the cemetery sign we were carving for a local sign shop. They want us to paint it now as well, black and white, so we'll tackle that next week when the games are delivered.
8)
JWO






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