Another Large Project in the works New! 20ft Video uploaded

[James@fireaxe]

So, I have been contacted by a friend who wants to have a 20ft and a 14ft Cedar boards... yes you read that right, a twenty foot and a fourteen foot long board engraved with some scriptures. Good thing is, its only going to be 14 inches tall so it will definitely fit within the CK work area in the Y axis. I will however have to transport the CK to his house to do the engravings. My CK is in the middle of my garage  bolted down on a workbench I made and I dont have a full 20ft on either side to accommodate the longer board. So My plan is to unbolt it and take it to his house and do the engravings on the floor. The area will be in the Livingroom/Kitchen. That's where the board will go, on the header of the span between the Kitchen and Livingroom. From front door to the back door is a straight shot and more than 20ft so that should be enough room to just slide the board for each panel engraved. 

I have designed the 20ft and 14ft board in F360 in 14 inch(360mm)  16 panels for the 20ft and 8 panels for the 14ft  at 18mm thick.

I used the text generator in F360 at 42mm tall for each scripture.

I then Exploded each text and then extruded each text -18mm. (this step not really necessary, but makes it easier in my thoughts to work with in the design mode.)

In CAM or now called "MANUFACTURE" with the new F360 update... created a Setup for Each panel. Used Engrave and a 1 inch 90 degree V bit for the engraving.

The plan is to setup a Jig to keep the board square when it slides across the machine to engrave the next panel. 

Ill post up pics when I get the whole thing set up and ready to engrave. Plan on doing this on Wednesday. 


Ill run a few practice boards through to see if my plan works.  Here are some design pics



14ft board



Engrave tool path



Setup 1

[Derek the Admin]

Nice! This one is going to be a nail biter!

[ksachse]

Wow....looking my forward to hearing how this works!

[ttabbal]

Man, I had decent "pucker factor" using 2 setups. With careful setup, I don't see any reason it wouldn't work though.

[benzy2]

Oh that will be fun. I thought at first you said it was a 20 foot BY 14 foot board that was 14 inches thick. I was trying to wrap my head around where that monster would go in a home. Still this should be a big test of your setup skills.

[Bruce]

That looks to be quite the project James. Definitely keep us updated on how it all turns out.

[fyddler]

When I do signs larger than one tile I manipulate the letter placement as much as possible to get the joints to fall between letters. I am really looking forward to seeing the final results!

[James@fireaxe]

Here are a few picture updates. I took a lot of time getting setup measuring and then ran a few test engravings. My original text was to big. Originally he told me 14 inches tall. I gave 1.5 inches top space and 1.5 inches bottom. Well, biggest his supplier had was 12inches tall, measured at 11.25. Sooooo I had to redo the entire board design. Took about three hours in the redesign, make the setups, engraving tool paths, and post process. So after all that, a test to ensure it fits, got a late start on actually the engraving. Finished about half, then it got too dark. (House under construction, so no lights in house yet) Ill go back Friday and finish the 20ft and do the 12ft. Now that its all setup, measured and marked, it should go a lot faster.


The work space. Made a jig to ensure the board stays square with the machine


I ran tape along the bottom edge and made my marks for the panels. I also made marks on the Jig so it was easy to line up the lines for the next panel.

[James@fireaxe]

Jan 15, 2019 16:14:57 GMT fyddler said:

When I do signs larger than one tile I manipulate the letter placement as much as possible to get the joints to fall between letters. I am really looking forward to seeing the final results!

I tried that, but it took to much to manipulate. I made the panels at 14inches wide so I could run across the line if needed to.

[ksachse]

That is looking really good already. Impressed!

[kevin]

This is quite an ambitious and impressive project and looks like it's coming along nicely.

[Derek the Admin]

Looking good man! Thanks for sharing the progress.

[roybartels]

Thanks for the pictures. Very interesting project. How do you line up when you shift the board left? Do you just measure?
Looking forward to seeing the end product, very impressive.

[James@fireaxe]

Jan 18, 2019 11:39:18 GMT roybartels said:

Thanks for the pictures. Very interesting project. How do you line up when you shift the board left? Do you just measure?
Looking forward to seeing the end product, very impressive.

I made markings every 7 inches. Each panel in the model is 14 inches wide. I made static markings on the bottom jig. I line up the markings on the tape with the jig markings. Zero is consistent at middle of bottom edge.

[James@fireaxe]

Some pics