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I’m giving a talk at Makerspace North!

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Here’s the promo stuff from MakerspaceNorth…

We are very lucky to have Rich Loen on board to delve into the makings of your own CNC machine! 

Rich Loen has built many CNC machines including routers, mills, and cutters. He’ll share the knowledge he’s gained both building machines from scratch, and converting metal-working mills to CNC.

Tickets are limited so don’t miss out and snag yours now before they’re all gone!

 

More details from the event description:

Rich Loen (https://Loen.Design) has built many CNC machines including routers, mills, and cutters. He’ll share the knowledge he’s gained both building CNC machines from scratch, and converting metal-working mills to CNC.

Rich will cover:

  • Hardware options – machine frame, linear bearings, ball-screws, belt drives
  • Electronics – stepper motors, servos, drivers, power supplies, control interfaces like smooth steppers, G540, Planet CNC hardware.
  • Spindle options – routers, air/Water cooled spindles, high-speed spindles
  • Control Software – Mach3, Linux CNC, PlanetCNC, etc.
  • Design Software – Fusion 360, Vectric V-Carve Pro, Other options
  • Suppliers of hardware and software

Rich will be joined by Chris Manning (@silver_hand), a local watch maker and silver smith with years of CNC lathe and mill experience.

Rich will also bring a small CNC mill he made for carving names into hockey pucks – and if you’re lucky, you can get your name carved into a puck during the event!

A Walnut Slab table – with 20 legs!

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My company has a cool tradition where every employee gets a pair of red Converse All-Stars when they start. We also give a pair to every customer!

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And, we needed a coffee table for a small meeting room at our office.

This was the result!

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I made two videos about the construction of this table. The first shows the whole process of building the table. The second shows how I used Vectric Aspire to make 20 soles to hold the shoes on the legs of the table.

The walnut slab started out like this – roughly finished at the KJP Select Hardwoods shop. I had to sand it to a nice smooth 320 grit finish, and remove all the debris and loose bits from the unfinished edges of the slab.

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I used Vectric Aspire to drill the holes for the legs. The dowels were all slightly different in size, so I had to make 5 different hole sizes to accommodate the differences.

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I finished the top with Rubio Monocoat, which is a two-part oil finish. It’s very easy to use – you mix the two parts, then apply the finish, and wipe it off after 5 minutes. There is no point in doing more coats, or letting the finish sit longer. The finish drys in 24 hours, and is completely sealed after a week. The finish is designed for use on floors as well, so it holds up well on a table.

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Here are some more views of the process and the finished table.

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