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.

Monday 24 March 2014

What do sharks do in the winter?

They play hockey!!! Or at least the Canadian ones do!
This is the second shark for Ripley's Aquariums that we're doing. This will dispense the stuffing that goes into the 'Build a bear' stuffed animals that you get to build yourself. The good news for us is that I only have to bend the flipper, and add skates. The rest of the model was re-purposed from the first shark we did.

The cnc-ing went pretty fast. I toolpathed the whole thing with a 1/2" ballnose cutter, and was very careful to confine all of my strategies to just the parts that needed cutting.
About half the files need double sided machining, so this is critical to save as much time as possible!

 We only got a few layers done today, but I think we're off to a great start!
8)
JWO




2 comments:

  1. Hi Jamie. Nice work. What's the tape for if I might ask?

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    Replies
    1. Hey Mal!
      The tape we're using is to hold the layers together while the urethane glue dries. Because the glue expands, I didn't want it to push the layers apart.

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