Many of you know I like to make my own bow ties. I’ve made quite a few on my Glowforge.
I recently was given a Pocket NC at work. It’s a very small 5-axis CNC machine.
Immediately, I thought to myself “I’m going to make some awesome bow ties on this”
Here are the results from my first batch.
I think they came out pretty awesome.
FYI: the wood I used is exotic. I didn’t paint them or anything. This is the natural color and the natural wood grain.
I’m going to be making a few tweaks before the next batch. Can’t help myself.
But, I think those will turn out even better.
I am sure you could. The difference is the cleanup and setup. The PocketNC and fusion360 make it really easy to do this type of work and there can be little cleanup depending on how you set your finishing passes.
I agree with @ben1 on this. If you lasered the shape, you would have a whole lot of char to sand off. Also, turning a 3D model into a grayscale image for lasering is a bit of a dark art.
I created a 3D model in #fusion360, created tool paths in #fusion360 and just sent it to the CNC machine. Once the parts were cut, I didn’t have to do any sanding.
I did laser my logo on the back, but I could have CNC machines that if I wanted. I prefer the logo on the laser to give it more contrast.
I know I’ll have to break down and switch to Fusion 360 someday, but I have this sunk cost in OnShape. I does everything I need for 3D printing and laser work, but now I have a CNC the CAM work is getting more important. Dang, these are nice.
Yeah, that’s the challenge for me. For laser and 3D printing I personally think OnShape is superior, particularly in the classroom environment. But for CNC seems like F360 has won. Yes, you can get high-end CAM for OnShape, but it’s pricey.
Very cool project. I love the variety of the natural woods. When I first looked at the bowties I assumed they were stained different colors but going back and viewing more critically they are really amazing.
confession: Before I clicked the thread I thought I was going to see Bowtie inserts to stabilize a crack in a wood piece.
I think they call sunk cost a fallacy. I have spent a lot of money on SolidWorks, but I am still learning Fusion360 because it is a cheaper way to accomplish what I need to do. For CNC it is really a smooth system and if you can manage the free license you don’t have any additional cost. The learning curve should be pretty small.
even without the cleanup part of things, I feel like the CNC would probably be faster for this as well… but that feeling isn’t based on any actual experience. How long did it take for one of these to finish?
