After cutting, I coated the stone with FrogJuice. A clear coating out of a rattle can.
to start easy and work up to hard.
Nice looking stuff, though. Why did you put that button in the picture? No one knows how big that is - put a dime or quarter in the picture. :)~
R
That's a quarter, smartypants.
Oh, and the wood for a finely detailed carving is to be ebony, which costs a lot more than soapstone. I'm thinking about introducing soapstone countertops to my area, so I am getting the feel of it. Still looking for a propane forklift with all-weather tires though....
Unless George Washington was a cross-dresser, that's no quarter.
Do you know the name Wendell Castle?
He ran up against a wall with his ability to price his works. You can only charge so much for a desk, and a desk is functional so it is not art. To overcome the barrier he made the desk non-functional - he'd carve an open book, or whatever, onto the top. This satisfied the art world and, well, you can charge anything you want for art as the people buying the stuff aren't using real/their money.
Maybe you should do that with your countertops. If you do, please PayPal me 10% of your earnings on such works - ideas ain't free, buddy.
Thank you.
ROn Sun, 8 Nov 2009 21:15:10 -0800 (PST), the infamous Robatoy scrawled the following:
-- The Smart Person learns from his mistakes. The Wise Person learns from the mistakes of others. And then there are all the rest of us...
-----------------------------------------------------
A question; I have no idea what size the coin in the last photo would be, - could you post the diameter as a reference?
diggerop
It is a quarter. 0.94" or 23.88 mm if you're so inclined. *S* I haven't worked it out in microcubits because my calculator ran out of yak oil....and without yak oil, my yak won't work the treadmill.
I just sold a couple of desk name plates to be carved out of soapstone for two executives. (I didn't really want to do this for those pompous bastards, but when I said the price, they said..ohh..okay.)
Looks pretty decent. What spindle speed went along with the 2"/sec feed? How long did it take, and did you do it _all_ with the same 1/16" bit? (I think I'd have been tempted to hog away the material around the lighthouse with a 1/2" square-end bit.)
A second pass with a 1/64" bit might allow finer detail, and a third pass with a V-bit would allow signing each brick :)
Thankee, kind sir. I am trying very hard to steer away from those #$%#@ %^ countertops and do something more creative with my time. I turned
60 last April and I'm really worried that I won't get to complete my bucket list in the next 25+ years.For a mint version of the Royal Canuckistani Quarter, see if you can pry open some visiting Dutch guy's change purse.
It is a quarter. 0.94" or 23.88 mm if you're so inclined. *S* I haven't worked it out in microcubits because my calculator ran out of yak oil....and without yak oil, my yak won't work the treadmill.
I just sold a couple of desk name plates to be carved out of soapstone for two executives. (I didn't really want to do this for those pompous bastards, but when I said the price, they said..ohh..okay.)
Good on yer. : ) ....and thank you
diggerop
18,000 rpm. I took the 1/2 hogging endmill down to 12,000
Less than hour including changing the bits. 3 bits.
3 toolpaths. One 1/2" hog, one 1/4" cleanup hog and then the rest with the .0625 ball nose. The 1/4" end mill created most of the shape so the ballnose didn't have to cut much deeper than 1/8"Indeed. The V-bit inserts, both the 90 and 60 degree ones go to a 'real' point. The stepper resolution would limit detail at that point. The run-out on the spindle doesn't wiggle the indicator needle.. Period.
The software allows me to set the detail resolution normal, 3x the data and 7 x the data. This was done at 3x. Stepover set at 40%
You know what a Canuckistani quarter looks like, eh? LOL
[ two! two! two! ...]
If you think this might be fun, you might be interested in
:-D
That's pretty good. I suspect the 40% stepover helped a /lot/ with the runtime.
Hmm - ready to build a machine with a bit more resolution yet? :)
As a matter of fact, I /do/. Have a bright shiny one right here. I still like the bi-metal (center hasn't fallen out of this one), but my favorite is still the $50 maple leaf. :)
Methinks you might be a bad influence on diggerop - by this time next year we may be looking at the Sydney Opera House in soapstone. :)
I can just change out the steppers. The drivers and all that are up to that. I'm basically pushing the envelope to see if any of that would make sense.
[snipped for brevity]You haven't bought anything with that 50-dollar coin yet? It'd make a nice tip after a big fancy meal, wouldn't it?
Yea... just a matter of time. He's asking questions already. I find that whole technology very challenging and rewarding. Just wish I had bought a bigger/better/3-head machine..yadda yadda yadda...
r
I've read your website many times and continue to follow your progress with great interest and even greater admiration. Not only for what I see as your genius and determination, but also for the philosphy you espouse. The world will undoubtably be a better place for you having lived in it. Not so many of us that can say the same. You Sir, are what us Aussies would call, "a really good bloke." I wish you every success.
diggerop
Looked good to me, even with that counterfeit quarter/Canuck slug. As for signing each brick, that's a lot of G-code to write. I'm still working, slowly, on a DIY mill, but cash flow has become an impediment to its completion. Perhaps one day I'll carve some fugly face in a block of aluminum or ebonized walnut.
I have a question - do customers actually want details of this sort engraved into their countertops or was this an experiment to test the limits of what could be done? Are you using a canned mill/software combo, or is this DIY?
Greg G.
I predict it will...
It would, but it'll stay in the little plaque on my desk. I'm not a collector or hoarder, but it's one of the three prettiest coins I have (the others are a Saudi sovereign and a Dutch 2-1/2 Gulden coin).
I've been looking for exc^h^h^hreasons for needing a 7-axis machine...
...and wondering if it could be built on the cheap. :)
Nyet - a moderately simple subroutine could handle it (including scaling to left and right vanishing points). I was being a smartass because to do it robatoy would have to upgrade at least his steppers - and you'd need a loupe to read the sig. :)
Stay with it! You'll have even more fun with it than you could ever expect.
Robatoy has done some pretty spiffy stuff with countertops, but I think he's looking for more challenging/artful projects.
I totally don't understand the reference to the numerical sequences of two and three?
I also missed the links to the JBot page; and here I thought I had perused your site in its entirety. Guess that answers the question of whether you can build a mill from plywood and junk parts. Did you use bronze bushings on the guide rails or do they ride in nylon or wood? What kind of accuracy do you get out of this? And is that TurboCNC?
I planned to make the guide rail supports out of wood as well since I don't have a machine shop and certainly can't afford to pay for the machine work. Rails out of hardened drill stock and sintered bronze bushing slides. Class 2C ACME rod, 10 TPI. Damned those 2C nuts are expensive, so was going to use cheap 2G nuts. A Dremel at first, and probably a Bosch laminate trimmer when I can look at various models to determine their bearing play - and can find one on sale or at a pawn shop. Wanted accuracy approaching one thou but won't get there with wooden and generic parts.
Greg G.
Does your software support half or quarter stepping? Not perfect, but it might attain more detail.
What kind of mill do you have? Or did I already ask that... D'oh!
Got a box full of coins from various countries, including the bimetal coin referenced. I imagine that was an expensive coin to mint and didn't know they fell apart! Figures those drunken Canuckistanians would come up with a coin that literally lost value in your pocket. Oh, wait, that's the US.
And that would be So Cool.
Greg G.
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