| Blog series by MrRon | updated 192 days ago | 3 parts | 2434 reads | 11 comments total |
Part 1: Part 1
Here is a picture of the CNC router I am currently building. I’m working very slow on this as I make changes as I go. When done, it will have a workable area of 36”x72”. I hope to be able to cut aluminum with this and it may undergo modifications to make that happen. I examined and studied several designs and tried to incorporate the best features of each; mostly I tried to beef up the structure. I consider this a test bed for further development.
Part 2: Part 2
I would like to present a little history and philosophy behind my CNC machine. First, I got interested in CNC when I tried to find ways to make many small parts for building large scale locomotives. These are built at an 1-1/2” to the foot scale. The locomotives are not live steam. I make them using mostly wood and some metals and plastics thrown in. Why wood you ask? Because my objective was to make a working model that you can ride without the high cost to build in all metals. (This w...
Part 3: Part 3
In this part, I will show you how to layout accurately to a few thousands of an inch. The CNC router is a machine capable of cutting to accuracies measured in thousands of an inch; therefore the machine needs to be built to thousands accuracy. This may seem impossible when working with wood, but with a few basic measuring tools, layout doesn’t have to be a difficult task. This will apply to marking wood or metals. Since I drew up all my designs using a CAD program, all my dimensions were deci...
