It's been a while since we have posted to our blog but things have been pretty busy around here. We are knee deep into the Spring semester and the shop is filling up with projects. One of the things that I was a little bit concerned about when we brought in the Shopbot CNC router is that students might have a tendency to use the machine as a bypass for learning traditional methods in woodworking. What I have found is that the Shopbot is teaching the kids things they would never have had the opportunity to experience. Critical thinking skills, complex math, precise measurements and detailed job planning are just a few of the things they are learning without them even realizing it. They have begun to learn how to lay out parts accurately and troubleshoot issues that come up. It is a very time consuming and mind numbing exercise the first time they attempt this but now they are up and running and we are putting a lot of hours on our new machine!
We still use our tried and true methods for prepping material just as we would without the CNC. The process of thicknessing, ripping to width and cutting to length accurately are even more critical now. Attention to detail is more important than ever.
The really nice thing about having a full size bed on our machine is that we can have multiple projects set up for production at the same time. We have mounted two small jigs at one end that allow students to work on the first two required projects on the CNC. One is a set of coasters that are held in place in the jig with wedges. This project gets kids feet wet with pocket and profile cuts as well as simple v-carving. The second, larger jig is for their required inlay project. We have used the area to the left of these two jigs for working on solid body guitar machining and the larger open area is for working with solid stock and the adirondack furniture we seem to make so much of here.
CO2 Laser work...
We have a staff member here at the school who runs a boxing club for kids and he asked if we could do a custom speed bag mount for him. Pretty straightforward so we took a scan of his club logo, tweaked it a little bit and ended up with what you see here. The speed bag will mount to the center of this board and it will be hung upside down ready for a workout.
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