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!