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<\/p>\nI\u2019m pretty excited about this project: a custom soap dish with a redwood tree embossing!\u00a0<\/p>\n
I recently got a used Tormach PCNC 1100 and this is the first \u201creal\u201d project I made on it. The first thing I did was a Turner\u2019s cube to get the basic feel of stuff.<\/p>\n
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I bought some scrap 6061 aluminum from Sim\u2019s Metals in San Jose. They sell it for $2\/pound and I got a $50 chunk; more than enough to make 3 or 4 of these things. I wanted to have some extra in case I messed up. It was roughly 1\u201d thick, by 10\u201d by 5\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once I had the rough stock, I used the dimensions to sketch a model in Fusion 360. I\u2019m happy to email it to anyone who wants; hit the Contact page and find my email and send me a message.<\/p>\n
I have a lot of HSS end mills from my manual mill. Apparently the Tormach likes fast speeds and smaller carbide bits, but I wanted to start with what I had on hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I mounted the rough stock in my vise, and flattened the top with a modular face mill that came with my machine. It is 1.5\u201d and eats through aluminum. I then used it to rough out the majority of the stock on the inside area. This left some pretty big round corners, and I should have realized that when I did the CAM for the final passes, but I didn\u2019t think about it till it was too late. I put in a 7\/16 HSS center cutting end mill and did the outside profile. The corners bogged down a bit; I later learned I needed multiple passes. Oh well! \u00a0I then tackled the inside area, and the thick corners really bogged down the bit; so much that it really worried me, and I manually turned down the feed to ~1-2 IPM. This safely got it through. I then used a 3\/16\u201d HSS end mill for doing the grooves and rouging out the tree. A 1\/16\u201d end mill was used to finish the tree; this took a good 40 minutes or so. Finally, the top was rounded with a ?\u201d ball end mill. \u00a0Lots of learning going on here for me, so my notes aren\u2019t really a recipe for how to do this!<\/p>\n
I wanted to have the whole thing have a slight forward tilt to allow water to drain out. My plan was to 3D mill the underneath and have it be a little rough. I flipped the part and had a lot of trouble mounting it back in the vice. I should have used the \u201csuperglue\u201d technique to hold it down, but I wasn\u2019t quite ready to try that. I ended up getting it in the vice okay enough with some parallels, but I had to stick one side out a bit. This accidentally propped the front up higher than the back, and I didn\u2019t notice. I used the face mill to take off the top, and it bogged down a lot in the front section; I knew something was up and it was taking off more than it should. I was committed to it at this point, and just went with it; it turned out this was perfect; it milled a nice tilt to it, and it is probably the way I should have done it to begin with! After a final profile pass I was done with the machining.<\/p>\n
I wanted the embossing to stand out, so I powder coated the bottom a bit and then sanded off the overspray area with a random orbital sander and 150 grit paper. This looked nice and matte, so I did the rest with it. I couldn\u2019t get it in the corners, and you can see it if you look closely, but I don\u2019t really care too much.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"