Inspector General Badge, Walnut

[David Falkner]

This was not a difficult project but the Walnut is so pretty I figured I'd show y'all. Originally they wanted me to cut all the detail in the IG Badge but it was over 19,000 nodes and it brought Fusion 360 and my computer, which ain't too shabby a computer, to its knees. Each time I would make a slight change in the file to clean up a jagged edge or something it took my computer and F360 about 15 minutes to refresh and hand control back to me. Ultimately we settled on the trophy shop doing the detail on the laser and I would just cut the outline and add the block on the bottom for a brass plate.

This has a couple of coats of Nitrocellulose sanding sealer and gloss lacquer and it's about 14" tall x 9 1/2" wide. The knot and cracks look far more pronounced in the photo than in reality and are very smooth. There will be so much laser burning in this area that I don't think it will be noticed anyway. When I talked to them a couple of days ago they indicated they'll probably want 10 to 12 of these.

Here's the graphic -
Inspector General Badge.jpg

Front -
001 - IG Badge, front.jpg

Close up -
003 - IG Badge, front close up.jpg

Back -
004 - IG Badge, back.jpg

Like I said, not difficult or really worth of a thread but I just love the Walnut so y'all get to see it.

David

[Richard Gonzalez]

Beautiful wood and nice finish on tricky grain.

[David Falkner]

The laser shop did the engraving on the IG Badge and while I would love to have done it all on the CNC, I think it probably looks better engraved on the laser. What do y'all think?

005 - IG Badge, engraved.jpg

David

[Bruce Page]

That looks great. There are some things that the laser just does better than the router. What format was the original graphic in? It looks like something VCP or Aspire could easily deal with.

[David Falkner]

We both use CorelDraw and swap files back and forth. They sent me the artwork and I took the outline as an svg out of CorelDraw and brought it into Fusion 360 to do the CAD/CAM portion.

Yes, Vectric products are geared for things like this but this isn't a strength of Fusion 360. When I look at how precise and tight the grouping is on the arrows and other areas I just think the laser is better. Some of that detail would be lost unless a very tiny bit is used on the CNC and then we're talking hours of cutting time, I would think. And since hours=higher cost they were better off cutting it on the laser anyway.

David

[Mark Bolton]

Nice work. I agree with the laser option. Even with careful planning that super fine detail is just a roll of the dice with a spindle. Little corners break off, fuzzies to clean up. The finer it gets the more nightmare. Pretty cool.

Having never been around a laser how do they perfectly align the graphic to the blank?

[Bruce Page]

Oh, l agree the laser is the way to go with this. I did bring in the jpg into Aspire and did a tracing. It cleaned up pretty well.

We both use CorelDraw and swap files back and forth. They sent me the artwork and I took the outline as an svg out of CorelDraw and brought it into Fusion 360 to do the CAD/CAM portion.

Yes, Vectric products are geared for things like this but this isn't a strength of Fusion 360. When I look at how precise and tight the grouping is on the arrows and other areas I just think the laser is better. Some of that detail would be lost unless a very tiny bit is used on the CNC and then we're talking hours of cutting time, I would think. And since hours=higher cost they were better off cutting it on the laser anyway.

David

[David Falkner]

Nice work. I agree with the laser option. Even with careful planning that super fine detail is just a roll of the dice with a spindle. Little corners break off, fuzzies to clean up. The finer it gets the more nightmare. Pretty cool.

Having never been around a laser how do they perfectly align the graphic to the blank?

Thanks, Mark! I gave them a CorelDraw file with the exact size and shape I ended with in Fusion 360. It all matched up so that was a good thing. I think they ran it on tape at 10% power or something light to make sure it was aligned and the opened the nozzle to go ahead and burn it.

Oh, l agree the laser is the way to go with this. I did bring in the jpg into Aspire and did a tracing. It cleaned up pretty well.

I had someone else do the same thing in both V Carve Pro and Aspire and both said it would be just fine to cut. I believe it would be like Mark said, though. Vectric software might make it easy to import, trace, and generate a toolpath on something like this but that doesn't mean it will cut as cleanly as one might want.

David

[Greg Parrish]

That looks awesome. I so need a CNC machine. Maybe one day I’ll figure out a spot to put one.

[David Falkner]

It's tight in our shop, Greg, but the kicker was when the CNC frame arrived I had to have room for TWO machines in an already crowded shop. The frame sat on the pallet while I built the stand where the CNC would eventually end up residing. As I look at our shop now I don't see how I ever managed to make room for the footprint of two machines, but we made it.

Get one - they're cool and addictive! In the end it's just another tool in the shop but most everybody agrees it's the coolest tool.

David

[Jim Becker]

That looks awesome. I so need a CNC machine. Maybe one day I’ll figure out a spot to put one.

Didn't I already suggest to you that you have some real estate shopping to do?

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David...nice work.