SMA Carved Logo
Recently a friend came to us and asked if we could carve their Men’s Woodworking Club logo onto some reclaimed timber from Melbourne University. Obviously we said yes, any excuse to use the Shapeoko CNC!
This update is a short one as we’ll keep it mostly picture based but think the results came out so nice that we just had to share.
Whilst the client provided the SVG file we ended up re-drawing and exporting it from Fusion 360 which we then carved using our Shapeoko Pro XXL:
Material: 225(H) x 450(W) x ~90mm(D) reclaimed timber (unknown species)
Cutters:
Post Processing: a couple of passes with orbital sander using various grits
Preparation
The logo provided to us was drawn in CAD and exported in DXF which was handy, as this meant it wasn't a sketch on the back of a napkin (see image outline below). But when we opened it we quickly discovered there was some weirdness with the splines and two lines didn't actually meet up - likely something went awry in the export/import process.
A few quick edits in Fusion 360 and we are back on track. Explaining the various choices in path types and the constraints the various bits presented was more difficult than it was worth. I find it is easier to show someone rather than talking in hypotheticals so I grabbed an offcut of 90mm pine and quickly mocked up the SMA Logo in 4x different scenarios at half scale so that I could walk our friend through the differences. This is easily accomplished in the free to use Carbide Create Program and which then generates the NC file for the Shapeoko. We are off and running!
I’ve got two favourites out of the options in the image below but the second option is a clear standout - so this is the one we settled on. It uses a combination of the 60° V-Bit Cutter for the flame motif and the 0.25” Flat Cutter to pocket out the surrounding outline. A quick reset of the scale, a tidy up of the operations and some creative clamping and we are away!
Wait. What? Hold up, stop!
So, it turns out we should have paid more attention to the total depth of the workpiece. After zeroing it in there was a warning to this effect but it was quickly dismissed, as surely humans know better than a dumb machine… right?! A combination of the total depth of the timber and the bit not being set up high enough in the router means that there wasn’t enough clearance for the first operation, resulting in the gouge across the face of the timber that you can see in the picture below. This is the path the router was taking to the centre of the logo before it would then drop down to zero height and begin carving - if there was enough clearance.
New plan! We try out our new surfacing bit - the McFly Surfacing Cutter. Going to call this a silver lining moment as it has sat next to the CNC machine for near on 6 months without use, so this ought to be fun. Back to Carbide Create to knock up a really simple surfacing operation whereby we faced the entire top surface down a couple of millimetres over a couple of passes - the beginning of which you can see in the below image as well.
Resurfacing the reclaimed timber after being presented with a new opportunity to use the McFly Surfacing bit!
Take 2
Now that we had resurfaced the top face we could try again - this time though we made doubly sure the “0.25” Flat Cut bit was mounted much higher up in the router.
Happy to say that weverything went pretty smoothly this time around and the operations were pretty quick to run, all up this took less than 10minutes. Although there was a little tear out on teh top face, [articularly where the end grain was perpendicular to teh cutting pass (middle of the circular outline). Luckily we already had that resurfacing operation setup, so we ran that again to take 0.5-1.0mm off the top to knock these back down and the results speak for themselves.
The timber has a lovely patterned end grain which really stands out in the flame motif in particular. After a light sanding the colours really stood out and this is without any finishing oils or wax. Check out the gallery below to see the results, sometimes simple is the best!
Stay tuned for more silver linings and adventures in CNC!