CNC Router coming soon!

[TonyN]

Lately I have been wanting to prototype my own designs and the thought of printing out parts and cutting them out one by one was not sitting well with me so my first thoughts were "Laser Cutter"
Well after investigating this to no end I went the route of the Europeans and settled on a CNC router instead. I'm sure a laser would have been better but the cost and upkeep would have been too much for me right now.

What did I get you ask? well I ordered the X-Carve by Inventables. It hasn't arrived yet but I am looking forward to getting it up and running in the next week or two. Look for some new and "Different" sailplanes to come out of the shop in the future!

Tony

[Dave Smith]

Tony, this is great fun. My buddy Doug Aldridge and I built one from scratch a few years ago, based on info here:

https://buildyourcnc.com/default.aspx/

Lots of learning, about building, stepper motors, CAD, electronics, etc. The end result is not quite high enough quality to do what we need, but boy did we have fun and learn a lot! They've come a long way, even in three years. Now a lot of the translation from CAD to CNC machine is taken care of for you, but it's still really neat when you cut your first wing rib!

Have fun and keep us posted. My plan is to take the core elements from ours and create a more accurate and "tight" platform to bring down the tolerances.

DS

[pelle_gris]

I bought a Pro-Basic 10-05 about a year ago. Best thing I ever did in this hobby.

http://www.cnc-modellbau.net/shop/product_info.php?pName=probasic-h-1005-diy-construction-set&cName=cnc-milling-machines-probasic-1005

I´m working on a scratch built Yak 50 at the moment. Designed by myself and the parts are milled on the cnc.

[ingrahal]

Tony, I am very interested in this CNC router. I can't wait to hear how you like it.

[TonyN]

Well my router is up and running, i've been testing out various different scenarios to see how it performs.
My first "official" project is a remake of a launch dolly I designed for our club a few years ago. The original has been through hell and the 1/4" ply has not stood up to our not so smooth field. I decided to rebuild her with 1/2" ply and a couple of stiffeners front and back. Its a little heavier but much sturdier and hopefully will hold up for quite a while.
I still need to disassemble and give it a couple of coats of poly and she'll be ready!

[gunny11]

Excellent work Tony!

[TonyN]

Thanks Gunny!

The machine has been idle for a bit while I work on some customer projects but today I finally made something that's going in a plane!

A BalsaUSA WWI plane typically is sport scale and they designed the servos to sit exposed on the lower surface, not my idea of "Looking right" so I drew up some servo covers in cad and routed them out. Total time spent was less than 45 minutes, and doing it by hand would have been a couple of hours easy.

[Charlie]

Nice Job Tony!

[gunny11]

Tony the possibilities are endless all you have to do is dream them up!

[TonyN]

Gunny,
The dreams are slowly working their way to reality! If I didn't have so much work for other people I might be able to get one done!
Ever since finding myself unemployed again more and more people are hitting me up do builds for them, not that I mind the money is useful!

[Charlie]

Save time for the really huge project I'll be sending you!

[gunny11]

Nice Tony, now finish that 2:33 build you started. As Charlie would say also, get r' done.

[davidhu]

I use to make a guitar recently.

[davidhu]

I use CNC router to make a guitar recently.