The Curse of the Dual Drum Sander

It begins with a piece of machinery that always breaks.  This is our beloved Dual Drum Sander, often the last power tool to be used before the finishing process begins.  When this breaks, all work seems to stop.  We've spent hours fixing this thing only to have it break again.  The drums go round and round, but the table doesn't want to go up and down.  That seems to be a simple enough task for it to accomplish, so why does it keep breaking?

This piece provides a clue.  That should be a flat piece of metal, but it shows obvious signs of erosion, especially as it is filed down flat.  Something must be digging into this causing it to seize up.  We could repair this piece, but what caused the damage in the first place?

The threaded rod is supposed to turn inside this plate.  This one isn't.  A large burr has formed and frozen this in its tracks.

Here's the lift assembly as it came from the factory.

Time to make some new parts.  Rather than steel on steel, I'm going to machine a bronze bushing.  While I'm at it, I'll dress all of the original parts so that they are true and free of burrs.  In addition to the bushings, I'll have to modify the original parts to fit and add a retaining washer to keep it from falling off.

Here's the finished end with the modifications.

And the plates with the pressed-in bronze bushings.

The finished assembly is complete.

And ready to put back in the machine.  I think I'll send this to PowerMatic as an upgrade suggestion.

CNC Cribbage Board

Somebody mentioned making a cribbage board and the idea has been on my mind for awhile.  The biggest challenge, I thought, would be arranging 360 holes along a vector.  As it turns out, Aspire makes this quite easy.  Here's a short tutorial I found on how to do this.

Here's my first attempt.  It was pushing midnight and I'm short five holes.  I discovered that tight curves don't make for friendly cribbage paths.  My solution was to delete the holes in weird places, but then I ended up short.  This is one of those projects that's going to take you some fiddling to get right, but has the potential for a very cool project!

Update:

I'm getting the hang of this now.  One thing that I've learned is that oval or rectangular tracks are the best to keep the holes from bunching up in the tight corners.  My latest iteration is below.  Total machine time is 25 minutes, but there's the whole process of how to paint it without messing up the alignment.

Let's explore developing and selling these!

Resources

Now that the shop is clean, I can concentrate on putting resources online for your reference.  (Thank you all for your amazing efforts!  I couldn't have done it on my own!)

Until I get the actual web page up, look here for resources.

General Resources
(Includes time cards, syllabi, and project evaluation forms.)

Exploring Woods Resources
(Includes all of those long, pesky workbook packets!)

Woods I/II Resources
(I've lumped these together this year, but that will change next year... just wait!)
Be sure to look at the end of semester requirements and first semester grade requests.

Tortilla Press

Abel wanted to make a tortilla press and I suddenly remembered that I had started one years ago. Together we came up with a design. Here's what I started with. Stay tuned for the finished product. 

Wood for your project?

Can you think of a use for this piece of wood?

New resources for the end of the semester

I've been hard at work organizing documents into my Google Drive.  Keep looking there for those missing assignments that you need to find.

Here's what's new:

• Google Drive Folder
• Shop Foreman Report
• Time Card (for participation credit)
• Woods I/II End of Semester Assignments
  (You know... so you can plan ahead!)
• Woods I/II First Semester Credit
  (Finally, it's here!  Pick your grade and earn it!)

Bad news:  The shed project has been canceled.

Good news:  More time for projects!

Starting to use Aspire for the CNC

So you want to learn how to use the CNC machine?  Let's start with some basic software called Aspire.  This will let you make anything from a simple name tag to a complex 3-d shape.  Rather than re-create everything from scratch, I'm going to select a few of their tutorial videos for you to watch and then begin to learn the software on your own.  Once you have tinkered around for awhile and are truly stuck, I will help you along.

Don't worry about messing up!  The program will let you see the outcome of your work without wrecking the CNC machine.  Once you have created something on the computer that you're ready to carve into wood, I'll check it before we venture over to the CNC for a satisfying session of sawdust-flinging fun.

For the full collection of video tutorials, go here:
http://www.vectric.com/support/training-material/aspire-vcp/2d-design.html

Step 1:  Learn the interface (in other words, what all the buttons do...)
http://www.vectric.org/video/aspire3/2d_design/a2-interface-layout-web/a2-interface-layout-web.html

Step 2:  Working with text
http://www.vectric.org/video/aspire3/2d_design/a3a-working-with-text-web/a03a-working-with-text-web.html

Step 3:  Creating a toolpath
By now, you've watched nearly 50 minutes of video and have (hopefully) spent an equal amount of time working in Aspire to try some of those skills on your own.  While the videos do show you how to make a toolpath, they don't show how to create one for our ShopBot.  Here are a couple of things that you need to know.

1. When you choose a tool, be sure to choose the 0.5" V-Bit.
2. Make sure that the feed rate is 50.0 (see illustration--I increased it a bit after some experimentation).
3. When you save the tool path, you must choose the "ShopBot (arcs)(inch) (*.sbp)" selection.
     
4. You will need to have a USB thumb drive in the computer.  Be sure to save the toolpath to the USB stick.
5. Important:  The toolpath file is different than the Aspire file.  After you export your toolpath, you must also save your working file.  What's the difference?
1. The toolpath file only has the codes to tell the ShopBot where to go:  up, down, left, right.  This will create a beautiful sign in wood (or plastic or foam or whatever).  It doesn't tell the computer what font to use, only how to make the letters.  This is the file that you will feed to the ShopBot.
2. The Aspire file has all of the information the computer needs to edit what you have created such as the fonts and the words in the fonts.  This file is useless to the ShopBot, but you must save it to make changes later.

You can create all of the toolpaths you want without fear of breaking anything.  I will always check them before anything runs on the ShopBot!

Step 4:  Independent Learning

Seriously, why would I do all of the work when it's been done already?  Go to the link below and watch the video tutorials in order and practice in Aspire.

http://www.vectric.com/support/training-material/aspire-vcp/2d-design.html

My suggestions to try:

• V-Carving letters
• Tracing images
• Creating a textured background
• Creating an inlay with two contrasting pieces
• Creating a 3-d shape to carve