Coast Guard Chiefs Hat Box

Looks good, nice work.

Very Nice

A proud place for someone to lay their hat. Awesome work.

This is excellent looking CNC work. Would you please answer some questions about the CNC work?

What software are you using with your Shop Bot? Aspire?

What cutter(s) did you use? Did you have to do a tool change?

What was the approx run time for each one of these? Do you tend the machine? or walk away?

How much sanding/chisel work was required to get the carving finished?

Great job, The Chief should be very proud of such a beautiful box!

This is excellent looking CNC work. Would you please answer some questions about the CNC work?

What software are you using with your Shop Bot? Aspire?

What cutter(s) did you use? Did you have to do a tool change?

What was the approx run time for each one of these? Do you tend the machine? or walk away?

How much sanding/chisel work was required to get the carving finished?

- Mainiac Matt

Click to expand...

Matt I am happy to answer your questions:
I use Aspire 8.0 Software

I used a 1/4 inch upcut end mill for the roughing cut, 1/16th diameter Ball Nose bit for the artwork and a 60 degree Sign Bit for the Text. This required 2 bit changes.

Total artwork cut time for the entire box was about 15.5 hours.
Cutterman Pin - 2.5 Hours
Coxswain Badge - 6.5 hours
Crossed Anchors - 2 Hours
CPO Anchor - 4.5 Hours
My shop is at my house so I am generally not far away from the machine while it is operating.

The 1/16th diameter Ball Nose does a really nice job so sanding is minimal. I use a small snap off knife, some hard bristle detail brushes and some sharp scrapers to get the main "fuzzies" off. Then I hit it with a 320 grit sanding mop mounted in a cordless drill. This whole process might take up to 30 minutes depending on the size and level of detail in the artwork.

This is a fabulous box and I love the carving.

helluvawreck aka Charles
http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com

Tim, definitely something for the Chief to be proud of .
Well done on an excellent piece.

Nicely done. It's projects like this that make folks yearn for a CNC.