Project of the Week

[Jeremiad]

Alright, this isn’t a contest or anything. Just post up what you are working on, even if it is still in progress! Let’s see what others are working on?

This is a vanity cabinet for my half bathroom. I designed the basic carcase using Easel Legacy Cabinet Designer, and then I modified it with my router table, hole saw and jigsaw to accommodate pipes and some extra dadoes that I wanted after the fact.

I cut the carcase pieces using 5/8 plywood, because I have a bunch laying around so it was kinda free to be able to experiment with things. It turned out okay. Not awesome, but it was useable, so I proceeded.

I contacted Inventables and requested access to their new CabinetMaker app, which is still in development and not exactly available to the public, but it was really easy to get access to it. I designed a simple two-drawer cabinet to fit inside the carcase, and cut that out of 5/8 plywood as well. To note - although I did tell CabinetMaker that I wanted to use 5/8 material, there were a few pieces that had to be cut on 1/2 material, so I did have to pick up another sheet.

The drawer cabinet went together very well once I had all the pieces figured out and cut at the right dimensions. It fit into the carcase nicely, and I undersized it just a bit so that I wouldn’t have any fitment issues, which (you guessed it) caused fitment issues that I had to shim. No big deal.

From this point on, everything is done by me using hand tools and a router table. This is the top of the face trim, and I had to route around the drawer box, but it fit up nicely. No cnc here.

The face is done in pine, and dadoed to make a flush face. This is the first cabinet I have tried to make with a flush face, and I think it turned out pretty good, although it is not perfect.

What are you working on?

[TimS]

Looks amazing! Well done

[Betalombo]

Buen trabajo

[Jeremiad]

Thanks guys.

This was the easy bathroom. Now I am working on the ensuite in the master to turn it into something amazing and make my wife happy.

I have to do two separate cabinets in that bathroom, but I don’t know if I want to make them identical. I think I want to design two different cabinets (his and hers), and just finish them with the same stain, top, sink and faucets. I have some time to think about it, lol. I have to build the shower first.

[Frank_Wiebenga]

Dang!!! That looks super clean.

[Jeremiad]

Hello all,

It has been a brutal summer. This thread reminds me of how my projects have fallen off for months.

Here are a couple of projects I have done recently.

My sister-in-law asked me to carve some new numbers for their house, as theirs are so old that they are falling apart. Of course, I didn’t want to do something simple, so here is my first attempt at messing around with aluminum. Being my first try at this, I went very conservative, and this carve took some 32 hours with a 1/16th bit. It did turn out pretty nice though.

So of course after doing this, my wife told me that I should do one for us. Okay then. I made a simpler design that I could carve with a 1/8th bit, and did this one in a little less than two hours.

I should note that I did not make these on my M2, I did them on a FoxAlien Masuter 4040, but the M2 can absolutely do it too. In fact, I’m sure it would do it faster once it is all set up with appropriate skirting, but I was lazy.

[Jeremiad]

Okay, here is a recent project that I did on the M2.

This is a project that I am working on for a bathroom build in my own house. I built a vanity cabinet with two sinks, and so I need two mirrors. I have plenty of mirror glass that I have removed, so I decided to make my own custom mirrors. The first one was quick and dirty - I used pallet wood that I sanded down, threw it on the cnc frame, and carved it. It looks okay, very ‘rustic’ if you like, but it worked.

There were many issues with the way I did it the first time. While sanding is effective to clean up the wood, it is by no means straight. Also, being pallet wood, it wasn’t great to start with. As a result, my carve wound up deep in some places, and shallow in others. The transitions between boards caused me a bit of issues with the way the sled rides, but I was able to fix that with painter’s tape.

On this mirror, I am doing things differently. I chose six pallet boards and did the same thing with all of them, even though I am only planning to carve two of them, and the rest are ‘skirting’. I first ran them over the jointer on one face repeatedly until I was happy with having smooth and flat consistent surface. I then put each board jointed face down on the planer for several passes until I had a smooth and flat consistent surface on the other side. I then mounted those boards to the frame with 1" screws, and moved the sled around to watch for float or bounce, and it is nice and smooth.

For this mirror, I did all new designs. To wit: I did not do the artwork, but each character or symbol is an individual piece, and I edited and brought each one into four different layouts to create the frame.

The carvings came out great! Very consistent depth throughout, so I will definitely use this technique of jointing and planing again. I apologize for not taking pictures while it was still on the machine and raw.

I carved right and bottom on one plank, and top and left on another. Then I pulled them off and cleaned them up a bit with some sanding and a dremel tool.

Next I used my router table to cut a 1/2" rabbet 3/8" deep all the way across the inside edge of the top and bottom, and I did the same rabbet on the sides, but only to the length of the glass, about 18".

This gave me a great inlay for the mirror glass all the way around the inside of the frame.

I also cut #20 biscuits into each end of the top and bottom of the frame, and into the top and bottom sides of the left and right pieces. This helps hold the frame together with some glue.

Here are some pictures of the finished product. This is the finished product sitting on my workbench.

This Mexican bull carving is quite detailed. Perhaps a bit too much for the size that I did, as I feel that I lost some of the detail in the head. There are also two flaws that I left on purpose - Being pallet wood, there are nail holes, and I used this as a hole to mount the plank to the wasteboard with a screw, and I used UGS to map where my carve was going to go. I literally carved around this screw on purpose, and instead of filling the hole with wood filler, I will place a rusty nail head instead. The other flaw is the horizontal line, which was caused when I had the bit at zero and then moved the machine. I left this mark there as a reminder to myself and my son that mistakes happen, and it doesn’t have to ruin the piece.

The coyote was also a very detailed carve, but it turned out pretty good.

This lizard worked great, and fit the plank right to the edges, as intended.

The rest of the carves were simpler lines, and I think they look really good.

Here are a couple pictures of it mounted in the bathroom.

Cheers!