A mother of a classmate of the twins (follow that?) saw a Pottery Barn item she wanted to get for her daughter but was taken aback by the price. It was a wall hanging jewelry storage thingamabob with script monogram. After she saw the twin’s social science project she asked my wife if I made things for people and described the thingamabob. I said I would be happy to try (silly me). I had to use an 1/8-inch bit to cut through the 3/4-inch plywood for the monogram letters and it took forever (I ran at 10 ipm and did only .07 in per cut as I was worried about snapping the bit). I switched to 1/4-inch bit for the larger cuts and that went pretty well. Overall took 5 hours to cut. It still needs some sanding, painting, and pieces added to it, but this is it so far.
The ability to do custom things like this is also a great chance to get people
into makign things.
also, think of toyboxes for kids that have their names on them and other such
things.
also, think of toyboxes for kids that have their names on them and other such
things.
Don’t let me wife know that.
That looks great. It’s really fun and nice to see things that are made with Maslow. Everytime I see things like this I get more excited to get mine up and running. I think my wife is going to love it and use it more than me…darn wood crafts. That’s ok, it gives me something to practice with.
Nice looking work there. If that’s fresh off a Maslow, I’m already happy I bought mine, and I haven’t even assembled it.
When cutting wood with a 1/8" bit on my little CNC (my Maslow’s still under construction), I run feeds of about 4X that, and I run a full diameter for the depth of cut. I use the inexpensive single and double flute carbide bits from Amazon, they’re a bit over a dollar each.There are variations between vendors (and you don’t always get what is described), but they generally work OK.
I might have been tricked into doing another and if I do, I’ll try to be more aggressive. I don’t think we can reasonably use bits shorter than 1.75 inches in a R22002 router. The Z kit had to almost bottom out cut all the way through the wood and the whole time I wondered if I had gotten enough shank into the collet to stay in place. Which bits do you use?
The bits are single-flute solid carbide that I buy on Amazon. Nothing all that special, but they seem to work OK.
Something like these:
I have not used them in the Maslow yet, but I use them all the time in my Makita RT701 that is on my OpenBuilds C-Beam Machine. On the Makita, I use a custom 1/8" collet that I bought from Elaire. I cut wood, plastic, and aluminum with these bits. They don’t last all that long, but they don’t cost all that much. I’ve cut more aluminum than anything lately, but I haven’t changed bits in a while. Of course, I am cutting smaller things with the smaller machine. I have no idea how long the bits will last on the Maslow. I’ll find out eventually.
My Maslow is still very much under construction. I spent the bulk of today welding up the frame and cutting my unistrut. At this rate, it will be at least a few more weekends before it is fully functional. I am planning to use a different Z axis setup than the Ridgid base, but I will use the Ridgid motor on the Maslow because I already have one. There aren’t custom collets for the Ridgid, so I bought an ER-11 X 1/2" collet extension on Ebay, something like this one:
I had to cut the shank to a more reasonable length, but making something like this shorter is a whole lot easier than making it longer. Cutting disc in the grinder made short work of it. I spun it in the lathe while I cut it to make sure it was straight, then de-burred it before putting it into the router collet
Here’s the result, with a 1/8" ER-11 and a bit:
Here it is installed in the router:
It does extend a little further than I wanted it to, but it should be OK, and that should actually help with the dust collection I have planned. I haven’t spun it up yet, but I see no reason why this won’t work. The shaft measured closer to 0.500 than the 3 router bits I checked with the micrometer (0.499 vs 0.498, 0.497, and 0.498). Still, when I do test it, it won’t be while I am looking right at it. I have seen adapters like this used on routers before, especially on router tables.
I chose the smallest one I could find that still offered the chance to use up to a 1/4" bit. The ER-11 has inch-sized collets up to 1/4" which should serve for a lot of the work I want to do with the Maslow. ER-11 collets also are available in metric sizes, up to 7 mm, which opens up the possibility for using other diameter cutters.
Of course, your mileage may vary and so on, all the usual caveats apply. Don’t go following my lead thinking that I know what I am doing.
following your links, I found that Freud has a good variety of single-flute bits
in various sizes and lengths with a 1/2" shaft
you can save a couple bucks per bit by buying from other sellers.
Thanks… I was wondering if a collet extension was feasible, however, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with trying to cut one like you did.
We’ll find out…
If you don’t want to roll your own like I did, the ones linked here should work for you, right out of the box. Looks like they’re a single-size option though, and the 1/8" one is a 1/4" shank, not 1/2".
https://www.toolstoday.com/cnc-extension-adapters-for-14-and-18-inch-shank
That is FANTASTIC! Also, what a cool thing to make for someone! The implementation is beautiful too, I like the way you’ve made the letters fit in the space available in the circle.
I second what @mfpiechowski says about going faster. I’ve had good luck running 1/8 inch bits at 40ipm although I haven’t tried doing a full diameter for the depth.
Thanks for sharing all of the cool things you have been building!
Anyone have recommendations on how to paint this? I’ve not really done any types of “arts-and-crafts” things before. They want it white so I was planning on applying two coats of spray paint primer (220 grit sanding after each) and two coats of gloss white (220 grit sand after first coat). Does that make sense? I think spray paint would work best considering all the nooks and crannies and there’s not a lot to actually paint.
Spray paint should be a pretty good way to paint it. A lot of pro shops will use spray guns to paint parts, which is just the more cost effective version of spray paint. I’ve painted a few of my cabinets I made Rustoleum flat black and it looks nice 
If you don’t mind me asking, what feedrates, spindle rpm, and depth of cut do you use for aluminum? I recently experimented with aluminum cutting on the Maslow and broke a fair amount of 1/8" bits before switching to 1/4". The 1/4" bit worked, but if there is a better way to cut aluminum I am all ears.
Can you dip it? I know it is pretty large, but a dip in a pan will get paint into all those nooks and crannies. Otherwise? I’d spray it.
Aluminum? Sort of a hijack, but my feeds and speeds are from an OpenBuilds C-beam, so they’re not directly applicable to a Maslow, the C-beam is a small, leadscrew machine that is pretty rigid. With the inexpensive 1/8" single flute bits, I feed 600 mm/minute, ramp plunge at half that, and use a cut depth of 0.3 mm. I adjust the spindle rpm until it sounds “right” and I’m making chips, not powder. Not “screaming”, but not “growling” either. I use a paste wax cutting lube too, but the main thing is getting the chips out of the cut, dust extraction or an air assist are required. Cutting chips over results in a really poor finish.
I know, I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to get some actual numbers to work with. I’m somewhere around the ballpark you are suggesting above. I’ll let it be as to not take over this thread… >.>
Absolutely! Feel free to use any pictures…
And to finish out the post, here’s the finished product. I had a big issue with the quality of the plywood cut. lots of unevenness and, for the lack of a better word, lots of frizzies coming out of the middle ply. Because of the design, there were lots of places I couldn’t get a sander on and ended up having to do it by hand. Unfortunately, it was difficult to apply pressure to get rid of them and it seemed a new one would spring up every time I got rid of one… I got so fed-up with them that I thought about trying to burn them off but I couldn’t find my torch. I ended up priming it so the frizzies got stiff and used a box cutter to shave them off. Still, was the biggest pain I had. If I do again, I think I’ll use something other than plywood.
Anyway, the two horizontal bars are designed to hold earrings. I put magnets on them so you can pull them off the frame, attach the earrings and put it back up. The “paper towel holder” lifts off the arms and you can slide bracelets through it. The knobs are for necklaces…I assume.
