Got my Maslow in about a month ago and set 'er up, went through calibration(s), and started in on a few small ‘starter’ projects. Quickly, however, I decided to start in on a Bolger Bobcat sailboat:
I’ve built small, wooden ‘stitch and glue’ plywood boats before, and this was the first time I wanted to go from fully-digitized plans in CAD to CNC milling.
I recreated the blueprints in AutoCAD Fusion 360, going painstakingly over each measurement and offset to get virtual panels. I then created puzzle joints from freehand splines to ‘cut’ the virtual panels to lay them out on 4x8 plywood sheets.
Taking the plans to g-code in Fusion 360 was not too hard, thanks to the video tutorials out on the Web. From there, it was a matter of cutting the frames, the side, bottom and bilge panels and the other bits and pieces.
I’ve built small, wooden (plywood) boats before, but this was where I wanted to take the full plans, digitize them (via design parameters within AutoCAD Fusion 360) and go from there to CNC milling.
I have done quite a few stitch and glue projects: a 17’ sailboat, a few kayaks, a stand up paddleboard, and now this 12’ catboat. I, personally, love the method! I cannot say enough about modern epoxy and also about just using plain 'ol fine sawdust from your dust collector for making the seam putty.
You rock! How much do you estimate the materials for the build? I’ve been out on a tall ship and done a bit of sailing with a crew. I was thinking I might want to learn to sail a small boat. This might fit the bill.
This is a large project using the full cutting size of the maslow, exactly the sort of thing it’s designed for.
What sort of errors are you seeing from your cuts?
This is a perfect example of perfect being the enemy of good enough as so many of us are worrying about the accuracy, while @Sonny_Lacey is not worrying about it, he’s just building it
Especially after reading the one blog post about a commercial company doing the same sort of thing (with three or more generations of CNC machines, the last of which is expensive enough that he comments that the vaccum hold-down motor costs as much as a decent car), which said that they go through multiple router bits a day and find that the accuracy as the bit deteriorates is enough to affect the fit
Sure thing @Bee go on and use any pics you like.
As for a materials cost, it’d be something like:
plans: $100
epoxy and cloth: $400
plywood (marine grade Okoume shipped down from Boston): $500
spruce, fir for spars: $200
various hardwoods: $100
brass sheetmetal and various fittings: $200
sail (made by Doug Fowler of Ithaca, NY who is one of the best): $750 [alternatively, Sailrite has kits for around $350 if you want to do that bit yourself, but Doug did my last set of sails and I like to support the thing he is good at]
I’m also using lots of scrap pieces here and there from other old projects, etc.
Hope that helps.
