The finished inlay
My younger son Will worked for VewDo, a local balance board company, while he was in high school and for a few years after he graduated. He still does website and graphics work for them and the photos below show one of his recent collaborative projects. He and Trevor took a hand drawn graphic and created files that could be used on our CNC router to create this inlay design of Peruvian walnut in natural cherry. There are a lot of pieces but all the pieces fit great. The VewDo people have some ideas how they are going to use this piece and I can't wait to see the finished products. I think it's a great concept ....
The walnut inlay pieces and Trevor's first sample test inlay in mdf and fibrex
The finished, sanded inlay
Imagine it up high like a sign ....
Click the pictures to enlarge them ...
3 comments:
Hello
Wow that looks awesome! Seeing all the remarkable inlay work that you guys accomplish is killing me... I'm trying to learn inlay with a jeweler's saw to cut the pieces and a dremel to accomplish the mortises and it's so painstaking... I'm getting the CNC bug more and more each day... I have been looking at a shopbot buddy but it will be a while before I'd spend 6K for hobbyist work... would you have any thoughts on CNC for hobbyists... i.e. are there quality entry level machines? How great is the learning curve to running such a machine (i.e. does it take forever to learn the software well enough to create and execute new designs)?
Regards,
Charles
Hi Charles Thanks for your comments. I first got into using a CNC by finding someone who had one and got him to do some work for me so I could watch the process. There is a lot to it but it is all learnable. First step is learning CAD to make the drawings. Then there's toolpathing which is usually part of the machine software and then there is basically practice, practice, practice. For a hobbyist, it would be a big step and unless you were really dedicated, it would be hard to keep your skills fresh. Give me a call if you want to talk about it.
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