My past year - or so

Leo Voisine

Member
Messages
5,696
Location
East Freeetown, Massachusetts
This past year I have not posted much in the way of pictures of what I am doing.

I apologize for that, as I have been extremely busy working on my house. That has left me just no energy to do pics.

I think I may have posted earlier in the year on my upgrade to vertical clamping on my CNC router.

I also helped a friend in evaluateing his very old shop bot to determine if there was any value in getting it operational. For his wants and desires - no. As a result there is an old Shopbot in a box available. It works, yes, but, it seriously needs to be upgraded. Gary Campbell has a really nice upgrade for it. It can be a really nice machine for someone that wants to work it. It's a 48x96 machine.

After the evaluation I helped him to search and evaluate many other machines. We ended up selecting the same machine I bought but he wanted a 48x96 machine. I am currently still getting it up and running and will be calibrating it. He is about 25 miles away, so it's not at all convenient.

I did some serious landscaping, planting new lawn, planting garden, building a 3 bin compost bin, and composting a mountain of compost. Then more landscaping, planting fruit trees, blueberry bushes, border bushes, and 100 more daffofils.

During those Hurricanes that blasted Florida and in particular the one that came up through Fort Meyers - the eye just east of my sisters house, I have Florida visitors for a couple of weeks. I also did a brake job on my brother-in-laws car for him, as they had no money.

In the fall I stripped gutters and facia and trim off my house. Do you realize that at 63-64 you should not be up on top of an extension ladder. Nope, I do not realize that. I vinyl sided the east side of my house. I then replaced 2 double hung bedroom windows on the front of the house. I also removed 2 double hung windows from the living room. Those were about 12" apart. I needed to remove the headers and install a single header for the new window.

Last on the house - for 2017 - I put up the vinyl cedar shake siding, and I did the interior wall repair and trim in the living room.

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Sorry, no finished pics yet

I told Diane I was taking December off to play in the shop on some fun stuff.

That turned out to be getting the laser going.

So far I have been playing with it since just about Thanksgiving time.

I really want to do a wide variety of things in my shop and I like all sorts of things.

Being Christmas time, and just because I like Christmassy stuff and I want to do some acrylic stuff, I went directly there. First I made an attempt at machine alignment - WOW do I have a LOT more to learn, but I think I did a fair alignment. I also did some learning on focus adjustment. Still a LONG long long long way to go.

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OK - this is my first real laser thing. I didn't have anything set correctly, and there is more wrong. So, I know what was wrong and I know how to fix it.

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It's a little tough to see but there is a 6 sided Clear Acrylic Christmas tree there. I designed it. I also made a little assembly fixture to help but it together. I am not done with this. I want to make a star and all bottom lit LED lights to it with a nice Cherry base.

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I cannot believe how nicely a laser cuts paper. WOW. I can even etch paper without cutting through
Diane wanted some Christmas card stuff for her scrapbooking party on 12-9-17 so I am working on that for her

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My friend Rick and I have been making more Christmas ornaments. This is 1/8 Baltic Birch. I have several patterns and I am working on some patterns on my own design. For my designs I an also learning Fusion 360. This particular on is not my design, but I did cut is on my machine. Rick also took one home with him. He did last week also.
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I make a couple of these piggy banks last year and my customer wanted more. Last year I cut the Plexi glass on my CNC router. This year the clear acrylic on the Laser. YES YES - the laser is the way to go for sure, for sure.


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Lastly, I did this today. There is about 1/16 depth in this engraving. I could have cut the power setting down from 30% to 20% Next time I will. This is from an artist from the late 1800's - Oscar Pletch. I have a few of these. It's gonna look nice with an appropriate frame.

This stuff is just so cool - I am loving it.

I have a rotary axis for the laser, but have not even plugged it in yet.
 
Very cool Leo and I like the acrylic tree and that piggy bank is tremendous. I like the idea of being able to see what is piling up inside.
Did you bandsaw cut the center or is it a cnc job start to finish.?
 
OK, so that's two or three good weekends for Allen Levine. What did you do with the rest of your year, lol? :rofl:

Sounds like there hasn't been much moss gathering around your feet. :thumb: I got worn out just reading about it. :D
 
Very cool Leo and I like the acrylic tree and that piggy bank is tremendous. I like the idea of being able to see what is piling up inside.
Did you bandsaw cut the center or is it a cnc job start to finish.?

The Piggy was a LOT of work. It is laminated out of 5 boards glued together much like a band saw box. I CNC cut the shape and glued it up. That's just rough. I used a benchtop 2" wide belt sander as much as possible, and a Oscillating spindle sander inside and outside. The tail, and lots of places I could not sand with machine I used a nickelson rasp, curved gouge, dremel tool, sandpaper at 40, 60, 80, 100 grits. Lots of hand forming there. It is my design from start to finish. Fun project.

Not something to try to make money with. It ends up being about a $1.00 per hour labor rate.

Labor of Love.

The Christmas tree will be a money maker --- IF --- it sells. The ornaments will make money. I also plan on some jewelry.
 
Darren,

I like the lights, I added them to my wish list.

Right now I have the ribbon LED's that can be cut to the length I want. They are 12v. I am thinking of either a transformer of a battery pack. Not sure yet where this is going.
 
Darren,

I like the lights, I added them to my wish list.

Right now I have the ribbon LED's that can be cut to the length I want. They are 12v. I am thinking of either a transformer of a battery pack. Not sure yet where this is going.


For just one or two secitions of the RGB LEDs I've been using an inline controller (https://www.ebay.com/itm/5-pack-Low...er-for-RGB-LED-Strip-Light-Black/251427000729)

Just solder a double header pin on the led strip (https://www.ebay.com/itm/10Pcs-4Pin...GB-3528-5050-SMD-LED-Strip-Light/191546012941) & use some heat shrink tube to hold it in place. I think they sell some clip on headers with pins too, that don't need soldering.

Use a wall wart 12v adapter of the right amperage with a 2.1mm barrel connector.
 
Well I'm sure we're all wondering what you've been doing in your spare time :rofl:

Lots of cool projects - looks like you're certainly getting the hang of the laser setup.

You're making a compelling argument for lower roof lines as much as I appreciate nice tall windows... Getting the house all the way you want it while you can sure is smart though imho. Glad you've been able to get a lot of it done.
 
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