hannah mishin

Portfolio and Blog of artist and technologist Hannah Mishin.  

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CNC Router Project

To learn the CNC Router at ITP, I designed a box comprised of nice wood.

Marquetry is the process by which puzzle pieces from different sources are inlaid within each other to create designs. 


However, traditional marquetry apparently uses only veneers to inlay, I will be using the entire bit of wood. 

I have chosen purpleheart wood  (pictured below- left):  

"Purpleheart stands on its own in the wood species. Purpleheart is an extremely dense and water resistant wood. It is ranked one of the hardest and most stiff of the woods in the world." - wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peltogyne

and marblewood (pictured below right): 


Both bits of lumber are reclaimed, meaning they were salvaged.  These pieces are often found in waterways and forest floors.  Because of this, the lumber is usually not square.  Therefore I must plane each piece before cutting it.





PurpleHerart |||| Marblewood

PurpleHerart |||| Marblewood

Because these woods are extremely dense, I ordered several bits for the router from http://www.onsrud.com/ 

Onsrud CNC Router bit

Onsrud CNC Router bit

Below is a vector file made in Illustrator.  The pink represents the actual amount of purple heart wood, and the green is the marblewood.  Because I have limited marble wood, I will pocket (carve - out) some of the purple heart to complete my design.

box design in illustrator

box design in illustrator

each colored section is a piece to be cut out of the marblewood, and inlayed in the purple heart.  If that shape is purple in color, it will then be pocketed by the CNC Router (recessed shape). 

After much discussion and advice from many sources- I have decided to redesign the box to be only pockets- which in this instance- means routing out shapes, not cutting. 


This is an image (a corvette engine)  that I am tracing.


The colors are for me to map in Mastercam - (the program in which the router is programmed).  Each color represents a different depth. 



The bits also came! 


I needed to plane the wood, so I carted it many blocks- 


I did not have time to run the above job.  It would have taken me four hours and I did not have enough time logged on the machine to complete it. 

So, I scheduled another time and in the interim spoke with another student who gave me advice on how to make my MasterCam generate a more expeditious g-code.


I was not informed (though I should have realized) that the 0, 0 origin in Mastercam would directly relate to the 0,0 origin I would set on the router.  (*duh*).  It appears my box is 3/4~ off of the origin.  I decided to continue the run despite this error to see if I need to make any changes to the "Pockets" (a machine-type term which, in MasterCam , tells the Router make a concave shape) or how the machine makes the cuts (does it make the concave shape by going back and forth like a printer or does it make a spiral??) 



I went to the bathroom, paused the computer and upon my return, the computer had gone to sleep.  I hit "h" on the keyboard to wake the computer.  I now realize that "h" was likely a command for "home".  With the bit down, the router began racing away and of course, snapped.