While watching one of the first Maslow demonstration videos of the first generation Màslow. I think I heard the narrator of that video say the most responsive area of the 4x8 sheet for the Maslow was essentially the center 4 or so feet the middle of the workspace.
This is important to me because on my fixed income and the price of lumber I can’t even afford a 4x8 sheet of plywood. My only option is dumpster diving . My question to everyone is could my canvas for creativity be essentially a piece of plywood that covers just that center region where the Maslow performs best? Everything else will be built to specifications. I’m not too interested in large items. Guitar bodies are what I’ll be making basically.
yes, you can make a smaller maslow.
with the original maslow, the problem was tha as you got closer to the bottom
corners, the angle of the near chain got closer to vertical and gravity provies
less force to swing the sled towards that side. If you make a smaller machine,
you still have the same problem at the same angle.
with the maslow4, we have belts to all 4 corners, so we don’t epect that same
problem, but you will still want a similar margin for a smaller machine that a
full size one uses
so if a full size (4x8 workpiece) is 10-12’ wide by 8 ft tall, going to a 4x4
workpiece would still want a 6-8 ft wide x 8 ft tall frame (or something close
to that, it’s not a hard cutoff, so where it gets unacceptable depends on the
accuracy your work needs, and we won’t know until we get them in our hands how
bad the dropoff is)
David Lang
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Thank you David for responding to this question. I was thinking that most would blow me off and disregard my question.
One thing is for sure I am going to get this Màslow working and I haven’t been known to give up easily.
Perhaps one day in the future I will order a Màslow 4. I can see that it is a big game changer in the world of vertical routing.Presently I am getting my materials together. At the same time I am building regular CNC 3 axis machine that I 'm diy . Both machines should come together weeks apart. The horizontal one will be finished first.
Thanks again David now I have a plan, a direction…
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Hi Chris, and welcome aboard.
It appears that you have already purchased a used Maslow and are looking to make it work for what you need. While I have no doubt that the machine is capable of doing what you need, and I can appreciate that you don’t give up easily. Good. You are going to need that kind of attitude. It may take a preposterous amount of time and patience, but there is no reward like success.
The Maslows and M2 are indeed more accurate in the center 4x4 area. I tend to always try to do my work close to center and up from the bottom about 10", and that is to keep my sled (or bricks) from tagging my footer board.
Keep in touch on how your setup goes. There are several very knowledgeable folk on this forum, and I have learned a lot here. Again, patience is the biggest key to these machines.
I look forward to seeing what you make. I have not done a guitar body yet, but I would like to. And then I have to learn how to play. lol.
Thank you for your response Jeremiah. It’s just knowing that the center 4 or so feet on the Maslow gives me great confidence. I will prevail God willing.
Having a great community of fellow CNC enthusiasts is another great boost for me.
I love challenges,but mostly overcoming challenges. I’m not going to lie this will be a huge learning curve for me.
Hopefully I can pick your brain. What Cad Cam software do you use? What free software is most compatible with Generation 1 Maslow?
I will follow the Maslow community for tips and follow others projects to get ideas and once I get the feel for the machine . I will share my projects with everyone.
Good luck and perciverence in learning to play guitar. It is very rewarding once you get the hang of it. But like all things you just have to stick to it. I learned by hanging with people who play that were generous with their time and there are some awesome on line teachers on YouTube and Facebook but I don’t do any social sites just YouTube. All the Best to you Jeremiah.
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Yes let’s keep in touch on progress and Forum news. Happy New Year and Happy building fellow Maslowian Yee Hah !
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I didn’t have enough room to build a full sized 10’ beam, but I can fit a full sheet of plywood, so I built mine to do 4’x6’ cut size with and 8’ beam and I normally stay in the center 4-5 feet of it by paneling and cutting the right side of the sheet and either rotating it 180 degrees or removing that half and sliding it over to do the other half. when cutting smaller pieces, it helps to have “framing” scrap to attach around the work piece to help the sled stay level across the work areal and not tilt. You totally can customize the size and still get good results.
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Thanks Orob that’s good advice. I just scored a 4x6 panel dumpster
diving recently. Yeah a pallet that had 3/4" plywood on both sides and the wood is pretty clean. I also discovered Habitat for Humanity Restore has 4x8 MDF and partial board for 10 bucks a sheet 3/4". Yee haa! Thanks again Orob.
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Hi Chris. I am still developing my skills and haven’t gotten deep into the CAD/CAM side of things yet. I use Easel (I pay for Pro) for doing most of my work, and often use Photoshop to make designs and then output to a different file format that I can import into Easel.
There are definitely some other people in here who can give you better advice than I can on free software to use, but the ones I have listed from what I have read and am interested in are Carbide Create, FreeCAD, Shaper Studio, and V-Carve. I would love to see others post up some knowledge and experience about what they use.
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I posted some how-to guides on the wiki area that show inkscape, corel draw, carbide create, or estlcam. I use coreldraw (older version) and estlcam, but I would rather be using freecad because then I could make 3d printing models and cnc cut models in the same software package. I can make what I want pretty fast now and learning another package will take some time and probably a lot of errors to get it right, so it hasn’t happened yet.
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I had Corell draw years ago. Funny I can’t remember anything about it now. I have photo shop. I downloaded GRBL and I’m going to read up on that. I just got it.
One things for sure because of my limited finances I’m going to have to take the open source free stuff. I am anticipating that since it’s free there could be qwirks along the way but we’ll see. The paid versions of anything are bound to be better. So I’ll stay in the forums and hopefully there are cool people like yourself willing to parlay their knowledge on me.
Hey we’re all in this together right Maslowian Brothers of other mothers.
I can’t wait to make my first cut. I will definitely share my progress. Thanks for getting back Jeremiad
I hear you Orob just getting one software down is hard enough without getting back to getting another system under your belt. Back to square one. Building is much more fun.
What’s that old saying No pain, no gain.
Save that back to the drawing board stuff for if there’s another Pandemic, right?
All the best Thanks for getting back.
so if you were ok with coreldraw, you might consider inkscape and then carbide create. I wrote this guide on how to do the svg file creation in inkscape here and the carbide create gcode file generation from the svg file here (just skip the coreldraw part) or take the plunge if you are more of a 3D drafter and use freecad.
I agree with Orob, that if you have experience with CorelDraw, Inkscape should be pretty easy. I haven’t tried Carbide Create, but I have heard that it is quite similar. I use Photoshop because I know it better, not because it is a better platform. For CNC work, I don’t think Photoshop is a good option. Illustrator, yes. So don’t go by what I say… I do things wrong in many aspects of my life, and find success anyway, but it doesn’t have to be that way. lol.
I also wanted to add a couple of other tidbits. G-code is easy to produce and there are plenty of free converters. Easel is free, but has more options with Pro like v-carving, and that is something I am willing to pay for. If you create a file, you can import it into Easel and make g-code for free. Easel is worth a try. I don’t use Easel to carve. I output to a file (which I can save locally), and I use UGS to cut and carve, and it is also free.
Thanks Jordan this is all good stuff . I will look into Easel and maybe go back to the Correl Draw and ink to see what’s better for me. I’ll keep in touch…
Okay Orob I will look into inkscape and carve create I’ll let you know if these will work for me.
Happy carving stuff, Chris
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I meant carbide create a nd inkscape…
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Hi if i would need to cut sheets size 6 feetx 8 feetx would it be possible
I know i would have to build.a larger frame but could the maslow do it thanks
it should be able to, the belts provided are 14.5’ IIRC.
reaching 8’x10’ would need a little under 13’ of belt (sqrt(8^2+10^2)=12.8)
David Lang
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Thank You For your quick response, i m planning to place My order in the next few weeks, it Will be to use in our small shop here in el salvador central América. Could point out witch models of routers and bit are more suitable
I Will be cuting 5/8 melamine sheets, mdf and plywood of same thickness. Thanks
Patrick yllescas
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