Good practice material?

[Acmeaviator]

As I prep my shop for the arrival of my Buddy I'm wondering what I should stock up on as a good practice material? I will be working with corian, marble, hardwoods, and baltic birch ply once things get rolling - none of which I want to destroy tons of while making my novice mistakes

[oddcoach]

pink or blue styrofoam building insulation. all the lumberyards lowes and home depot have it
it comes in 2' x 8' panels 1" and 2" thicknesses
last time i looked it was about $12 for the 2"

[dana_swift]

Pryor to even cutting foam-- air is cheap and plentiful. Dont even put in a bit until you are sure you wont hit a clamp holding down the foam.

You will only need to be this cautious in the beginning.

As you get control of the process you will go more directly to cutting finished products.

Prior to cutting anything, there is a lot of things to check. Does moving each axis a commanded distance actually go that far? Set the limits for your table to the real limits, not what the factory defaults are.

I decided that +X should be to my right, and +Y should be away from me. Not the factory setup either. Easy to make it your way if you want that.

There is a lot to learn in daily operations, from setting XY zero for the table, or the workpiece to touching off for base relative cuts or top relative cuts.

Learning to put away the ZZero plate so that it doesn't get damaged by router motion, and dealing with the dust skirt. Initially I just suggest leave the dust skirt off so you can see what is happening. It makes a mess but is better for learning.

You will also be learning about inadequate hold-down. Sooner or later you will find your material moving at a high rate of speed in a direction you did not choose, hopefully away from you.

And you will learn that although the shopbot usually makes slow graceful moves, there is another option. Keep your hands away.

Be sure to have two or three bits of the common sizes. In the beginning breaking is much higher, nice to have replacements available. When the swearing stops, the learning continues. Breaking bits is very uncommon now, but I have to confess it still happens.

Welcome! We look forward to the day when you can show off the cool stuff you have made!

Good luck, and if you need help with that first cut there is bound to be a shopbotter in your area that can come by and lend a hand.

One of the biggest problems you are going to have in the near future- is wiping that grin off your face!

Again- Welcome.

D

[Acmeaviator]

Dana thanks for the great reply! I have been planning this purchase for awhile - both financially and with the wife - and now that the machine is ordered a little bit of "oh my God it's really happening" panic has set in. Working with the software now is helping, and I think once I finish prepping my shop I'll be a bit less anxious.

[dana_swift]

Brian- you will be anxious until you finish that first big project for your wife!

Suggestion- for the past four or five years (however long I have owned the bot) I have built all of my Christmas presents on the bot. Its a great opportunity to get the wife involved. Every present is personalized with an engraved name, or whatever. The first Christmas I made lithophanes of family members, my mother loved them and put them in her window for all of her friends to see her kids and their kids. Now she has passed, I am so glad I did that!

Lithophanes made a great first Christmas project. That same Christmas, I cut the parts for a rubber band gattling gun my brother was building as a present for my nephew. Really cool project! I am enclosing some photos, remember this was done just about a month after I first got my bot. Notice the spoilboard doesn't have a zillion cuts in it yet! It was brand new!










Making cool stuff happens quickly, it doesn't take that long to learn. Hopefully that gives you an idea or two.

If you happen to live near Tulsa, or happen to pass by, give a holler!

D

[Acmeaviator]

Nice work Dana! My wife and I are in a bit of a "competition" of sorts with out crafting semi-hobbies. For the last few years we have been working with pottery, and last year my wife made the move from just for fun to starting a small business - 12pawspottery. I bought her a kiln and set up a studio in the basement for us to work in. Following that I decided to take the leap with my own hobby - so now the race is on lol I think there are a number of complimentary pieces that we could make using the bot and her clay throwing talent - wood chargers for her larger platters and bowls, carved wood jar lids, etc. etc. Tulsa is a haul from Cinci -hopefully I'll be meeting more of the community at training/camp events soon!

[CNYDWW]

Nice work Dana! My wife and I are in a bit of a "competition" of sorts with out crafting semi-hobbies. For the last few years we have been working with pottery, and last year my wife made the move from just for fun to starting a small business - 12pawspottery. I bought her a kiln and set up a studio in the basement for us to work in. Following that I decided to take the leap with my own hobby - so now the race is on lol I think there are a number of complimentary pieces that we could make using the bot and her clay throwing talent - wood chargers for her larger platters and bowls, carved wood jar lids, etc. etc. Tulsa is a haul from Cinci -hopefully I'll be meeting more of the community at training/camp events soon!

Any of her clay or a substitute of the like have the ability to be cast? Expanded or extruded polystyrene cnc milled make great casting molds.

Regards
Randy

[Joe Porter]

Just to kind of go along with what Dana said about moving the router around in the air, the Buddy has limited Z (up and down) travel and you can hit the upper stop pretty quick. I don't think there is a limit switch on that, so be careful. Don't ask me how I know...anyway, welcome to the Buddy group and please ask if you have more questions. joe

[adrianm]

I use blue carving wax for the rare times I get enough spare machine time to try out different relief carvings.

I've remelted and cast this batch at least ten times now so it's a very cheap practise material with the advantage that you can make it any thickness you like.

Not much use if the items you want to practise are measure in feet rather than inches though!