Noah B Woodworks

We’re in the heat of holiday season. Christmas and new years are just under two weeks away, so I scrambled last weekend to figure out what to make for my co workers and family. I like to make the people who I am closest to in life something nice for the holidays if I can manage it. It seems like Sundays are always scattered for me. I’m either content with the way the woodworking weekend went, or feeling panicked and unsatisfied. Yesterday I felt very unsatisfied but I got a lot of good work done regardless.

I used a ton of time on Saturday on the computer morning 3D modeling. I finished modeling the rough draft of the camera housing I am looking to 3D print, and made the Gcode for my Christmas gifts in Carveco. This year I’m making small ornaments, but I found a cool 2D black and white image of a bunch of cute Christmas gnomes, and I put quippy sayings under them. For one co worker I wrote “HR’s Favorite” and for another I wrote “Do they know it’s bad?”. Simple one liners. I was looking to use the CNC to inlay contrasting wood into the carving to really make them special. I learned a lot this weekend about inlaying with the CNC.

If you’re going to inlay with the CNC, you need to do it on something large, and if you’re looking to do fine detailed smaller pieces, they need to be carved into the end grain. Doing small side grain pieces is near impossible, no matter how sharp the bit, because the small fibers will just shear off at the slightest bit of force. I pivoted from that idea and I’m filling the voids with epoxy. Hopefully I’ll still get a decent result. There is a lot of strange geometry as well when inlaying with the CNC. You have to consider everything from the angle of the v-bit you’re using to the depth of the offset for the mating piece. I spent a couple hours on this rabbit hole only to pivot, so that is why I was feeling so unsatisfied yesterday. I learned a lot but I feel like less got done. On to the next.