CNC Router

[tossedman]

Just got the news that my school is getting a General cnc router

with Stand, Lexan Enclosure with Safety Interlock Doors, Dust Collection Kit, ArtCAM Express Software, iPicture Software and an 8-Piece Tooling Kit. Looks like I need to bone up on some G code. I see lots of possibilities here! :)

 

I've had a bit of experience with a CNC router previously. Built this HO slot car track. Designed it in Adobe Illustrator and cut it on a friends router. It's almost done now. Need to glue in the rails and wire it all up.

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

Edited June 16, 2015 by tossedman

[cteno4]

Wow todd,mthat a cool slot car layout! Also cool news about the cnc router! I take it you have easy access to it!

 

Jeff

[tossedman]

Thanks Jeff. That tracks been a work in progress for a couple of years now. It's 4' X 16' and all lanes are just over 60' long. Should be fun. I'll have a slot car club going at school next year.

 

I'll have complete access to the router as I have a set of keys to the shop and am in the shop teacher's best books. She needs me to try to figure out how to use the thing.

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

Edited June 16, 2015 by tossedman

[cteno4]

Todd,

 

Wow, im envious of your position there! Great place to be, always good to spread the goodwill,met comes back to you and makes the world a nicer place to boot.

 

Our shops are going fast here. The few options any more are like the place you found online here and are pretty expensive. Even the private wood shop ain't cheap to use anymore, but if you don't have the space or tools not so bad as they cost as well!

 

I'm hoping to get going on the silhouette this week, life stuff has just been getting in the way too much here lately...

 

Jeff

[tossedman]

They're disappearing here too Jeff, although the maker movement is popping up in schools here and there. We're lucky in that we have a pretty well equipped shop and a great teacher in there. Nice to have access to all of that after school and during the holidays.

 

Todd

Edited December 22, 2015 by tossedman

[cteno4]

Yeah I just don't get where kids will learn a bit of practical likemthis in life, it's good stuff everybody should be exposed to. I was lucky to have a father who is an avid wood worker and always had a shop for me to play and work in! I'm old enough to have had to had a metal shop and wood shop class in jr high school. Would have been great Ifmit was also the sewing and cooking class the girls took as well! For some it was a profession to take all the shop classes and get a trade, others did that then became engineers and computer programmers, and some like me just loved the shop and relished having one shop class with the rest all being AP courses!

 

Starting at age 12 I was good enough in wood to make wooden toy vehicles and they sold well enough to earn a minimum of $5/hr and sometimes twice that, when kids were lucky to make $2-3/hr at kid jobs. Couple years later I was good enough at metal work to to over $10/hr doing metal sculptures. Kept me on model trains, plastic model kits, and movies for a long while!

 

Jeff

[tossedman]

You know it's ironic, the government here is crying the blues about the lack of trades people and and at the same time cutting back on the very things in schools that will get kids interested in getting into the trades. And I find that so many kids never make anything unless it's on a computer. They have zero experience in building things as they've never done it before, neither at home nor at school. Tragic.

Edited December 22, 2015 by tossedman

[cteno4]

Yes, very much so! I did some construction work as a teenager as a side job now and then, starting out with the scutt work, but since i knew how to hammer a nail, measure, cut, figure out things, the guys quickly started training me in how to do everything. It was wonderful as it was paid training! i learned a lot and really enjoyed it, almost did not seem like work. It always felt good that i knew if all else failed i could go pound some nails most likely!

 

building things physically uses the mind differently than making them on the computer, just like drawing with a pencil on paper stimulates the brain differently than using a mouse on a screen. There is a reason the old masters insisted that students and apprentices do art inall sorts of different mediums and techniques even if they were especially good at one thing, it stretches the mind differently than just doing one thing over and over and not having the experience of other things. same goes for know how to build something outside a computer! 

 

actually now that i think about it, many of my shop teachers thru jr high and high school were actually most of the best mentors of the time i had. i also took all the hardest academic classes, but few of those teachers, while mostly all excellent (lucky we were in a very good school district) few turned out to be big mentors that pushed past the content to learn, a few were great mentors but most were not.

 

jeff