Earlier this year Donna brought her desktop CNC machine into TAP lab to get some help getting it working. Donna’s husband Bill was a very talented wood carver and had bought it to help lessen his workload as he was getting older. Unfortunately he had died before getting it running.
TAP lab has a large CNC machine that has been harder to get set up than we’d hoped so having a small and more user friendly version to get used to first seemed like a great way to build up to the big one. Doug put his hand up to figure it out and was able to get it working quite quickly. Working through all the steps to get it carving the designs well was a longer process of trial and error. Donna brought in Bill’s sketchbook so that his drawings could be digitised into a vector format (a few TAP lab members helped out with this).
Together Donna and Doug worked through all the different parts of the set up. Doug investigated software options, they worked through different shaped machine bits to work out which ones would give the right effect. Doug created 3D printed jigs to hold the different pieces of wood in place. Donna colour coded her router bits, wrote up multiple checklists for herself and labeled her tools.
Donna comes into TAP lab now to use her CNC multiple times a week. She does all of it by herself but likes to have someone else there to call on for help if she gets stuck with anything. Pretty soon Donna will have done this enough times that she’ll feel confident enough to take it back home and use it by herself.
Doug created teaching resources for Donna that apply to the large TAP lab CNC too. He’s now working through sharing the software knowledge and showing other TAP lab members how to work the large CNC.