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I’m giving a talk at Maker Space North on February 26, 2019

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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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