Noah B Woodworks

Yesterday I was in a bit of a funk, so I ended up going out to the woodshop after work to decompress. I was interested in continuing the epoxy work I’ve been developing. I’ve made quite a few epoxy works over the last few weeks and I figured I might as well make one that is less Christmassy and more artsy. In Carveco, I changed some settings on my v-carving bit as well. The software was thinking that the tip of the bit was .01mm instead of .01 inches and it was taking a millennium to carve anything and took a lot more processing power to run the simulations. I believe I have it dialed now, and I should be able to do some really efficient carvings with these settings. The one from yesterday was 8in x 9.5 inches and it took under an hour to carve, which is a drastic improvement from the 3in x 3in carving that took 5 hours last weekend.

The holidays are almost over but they sure are a huge distraction from the day to day. I have a fairly large list of lingering projects that need to be handled. In no particular order I need to: 3D print a housing for my camera, go crazy making a bunch of drawers for the shop, finish 3D printing gridfinity boxes for our house, 3D print a bunch of holders for sanding pads, finish the 3D topographic map for my dad for Christmas then mail that out with the old tabletop CNC, finish the three speaker boxes for my brother, and make some mechanisms for puzzle boxes. Once all of this is done I’ll be good to go for 2026.

All of the 3D printing stuff will just take time inside, but the rest I’m hoping I can knock out in a month or two. I’m definitely looking to do the shop furniture when I have more funds to purchase a good amount of sheet material. If I could start a box and finish the topo map this weekend I’d be thrilled, but its Christmas and I’m worried for compromised glue joints due to cold weather. I’m remembering now that I have to put off the speaker boxes until it is a little warmer so the glue can set correctly. Those boxes will be relying on mitered joinery, so it’s inherently less strong. Good glue adhesion is a must.

The cold is honestly why the epoxy work is so interesting to me right now. I can do a carve outside, sort of linger inside, monitoring with my surveillance camera and fill the void with the craft epoxy inside. Then I’ll wait 24 hours, sand the epoxy off, route the edges and put finish on. I can make quite a few art pieces this way. The drawers might be a good thing to tackle while it’s still cold out too, as they’re getting some structural integrity from pin nails, so it wont matter as much if the glue joints are compromised for now. Problem is I’ll have to pony up a bunch of money to buy the materials for that project. Seems totally worth it.