WoodMarvels Blog

Toughest part about transitioning from laser to CNC design

Jon — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:30:20 +0000

As I embark on more difficult CNC models with interlocking parts, the toughest part about transitioning a design that was meant for laser into one meant for native CNC cutting is realizing the following key facts. Each cut with a CNC weakens the board Unlike laser where there is no resistance, you have a spinning router bit going thousands of revolutions a minute, ripping and pushing through wood. When I first started cutting with my ShopBot Desktop, I’d put in [...]

WoodMarvels.com January 2012 Review

Jon — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:38:49 +0000

Considering the first two weeks of the New Year were a write-off due to my fried laptop fan (meaning I had no computer till it was fixed), I still got quite a bit done! Overall, WoodMarvels.com grew very well in 2011. January 2012 Happenings! I was interviewed for an Indonesian laser crafting blog and Fab Lab Tulsa also added WoodMarvels.com as a resource. I released a bunch of new CNC projects, all found under Collaborations / ShopBot Tools (CNC) such [...]

CNC Router Projects: Now in Adobe Illustrator and EPS file formats too!

Jon — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:43:38 +0000

With the laser end of WoodMarvels.com, for the past 3 years, I’ve been fine offering DXF and EPS file formats for machines the world over but with CNC, things are a little more complicated so I’ve added to the file formats of DXF and PartWorks zip files the new formats of Adobe Illustrator and EPS which should over all the CNC bases. You now get twice the number of files for the same price! If you already bought a CNC [...]

Elephant CNC: New CNC Routing Project!

Jon — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:37:24 +0000

I’ve always enjoyed the majestic grace of elephants, they seem to know who they are and don’t seem to care what other animals do around them. They are very proud and strong, and now you can get your very own CNC equivalent! You can find this now at WoodMarvels.com in PartWorks/DXF and PDF file formats right now. It’s made-up of 24 pieces with dimensions @ 6mm of L: 22cm, W: 12cm, H: 16.5cm cut on one 500mm x 400mm sheet [...]

Rhinoceros CNC: New CNC Project Launch!

Jon — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:27:13 +0000

You can now buy our updated Rhinoceros CNC model at WoodMarvels.com! This 25 piece model, if cut at 6mm, measures roughly 20cm long by 13cm high and has spinning wheels. You can find this model in Collaborations / ShopBot Tools (CNC) in DXF/PartWorks as well as PDF file formats. You can see the cutting and assembly videos, both animated and video, below. Rhinoceros CNC: Proof of Concept Rhinoceros CNC: 3D Assembly Animation (720HD)

Combining EPS/DXF file downloads

Jon — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:11:33 +0000

I sometimes have issues with people buying EPS or DXF files but the machine software they use to cut the model with doesn’t accept the format they bought. Another common issue is having a different board size than the one I’ve optimized the EPS to… to solve both problems, I’ve decided to (very slowly) start combining EPS/DXF files available on the site. Before, you had to buy both separately, the EPS had all double lines removed while the DXF had [...]

Ultra-Modern Tray CNC: New CNC Router Project Launched!

Jon — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:54:52 +0000

Dirk designed this wonderful tray for laser and it was on the top of my list to try to convert to CNC… and now you can buy it as well at WoodMarvels.com under Collaborations / Dirk (or ShopBot Tools) for your very own workshop. This CNC project is 14 pieces in total and if you are using 6mm thick material,19cm square with a height of 6cm. The joints are pretty tight so you probably don’t even need glue either if [...]

Attack Helicopter CNC: New CNC Router Project!

Jon — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:09:34 +0000

David Newman made a really cool Attack Helicopter with this laser machine a while back and I always wanted to give an update to it, but this time, for CNC. What I especially liked about his Attack Helicopter was its removable missiles (of course, you can glue them in place if you wish) and the cool looking rotors he made for it. After getting a few CNC projects down, I decided to give an update to this model a go [...]

CH-47 Chinook Helicopter CNC: New CNC Router Project Launch!

Jon — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:15:05 +0000

By far the largest model available at WoodMarvels.com under the ShopBot Tools Collaborations category, this huge CH-47 Chinook Helicopter CNC requires six sheets and is made-up of 49 pieces… and it’s 79cm from blade tip to blade tip! I decided to model this project to test out how the ShopBot Desktop performs over extended periods of time cutting sheet after sheet (this was in between other cutting projects) and after about 6 hours of continuous cutting and a worn-out bit… [...]

Future Car B CNC: New CNC Router Project!

Jon — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:57:22 +0000

New day… new CNC router project launch! When I first got my ShopBot Desktop, I decided to focus on the simpler laser models, if there were issues, it’s easier to solve when you don’t have too many interlocking parts. This project came out great from the first cut so you can get it now too, it’s the Future Car B CNC. You can find this CNC model in DXF/PartWorks and PDF formats at WoodMarvels.com under Collaborations / ShopBot Tools. It’s [...]

Fab Lab Tulsa adds WoodMarvels.com as a resource!

Jon — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:44:16 +0000

I got a few hits the other day from a new source when reviewing my stats and in this case, it was Fab Lab Tulsa that decided to add WoodMarvels.com as a resource for woodworking projects. Cool! http://www.fablabtulsa.com/the-lab/documents

Pen and Pencil Holder B CNC: New CNC Router Project Launch!

Jon — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:01:46 +0000

The Pen and Pencil Holder B is a quick project that features a hidden guide system for easy assembly. Just slide one piece after the other, use clamps to hold things tight while the glue dried and you are done! You can get the files right now at WoodMarvels.com under Collaborations / ShopBot Tools in DXF/Partworks and PDF formats. Completed 19 piece model dimensions @ 6mm L: 13cm, W: 7cm, H: 9cm cut on one 500mm x 400mm sheet of [...]

WoodMarvels.com 2011 Year in Review

Jon — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:13:59 +0000

Each month, I do a review of the previous one and now that 2011 is behind us, here is a review of where things are now vs a year ago. If you are interested, you can skip through the monthly reviews for January, February, March, April, May, June/July, August, September, October/November and December of this year. You can also read the reviews for 2010 and 2009. What my goals were for WoodMarvels.com 2011 Release at least a few models in [...]

P-38 Lightning Aircraft CNC: New CNC Router Project!

Jon — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:46:17 +0000

Another day, another CNC router project from WoodMarvels.com! This time, it’s a very big and strong P-38 Lightning Aircraft featuring a very sturdy build, spinning rotors and pocketed emblems on the wing. It too me two tries to finalize this design on my ShopBot Desktop machine but once I got everything fitting perfectly using 6mm plywood, it was really amazing to hold such a large model in my hands! It has heft, sure, it won’t fly very far unless you [...]

WoodMarvels.com December 2011 Review

Jon — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:47:47 +0000

December flew by, I moved (yet again), this time to Northern Ontario into a remote city of about 100 people but as long as I had internet, I was fine running things as normal. WoodMarvels.com had a flood of activity as usual so here is a summary of what happened during the month of December. I’ll be doing a “year in review” in a few days so you can see how far WoodMarvels.com has come over the past year and [...]

Parasaurolophus CNC: New CNC project released!

Jon — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:44:18 +0000

Now that my computer is back up and running, I’m able to release a backlog of projects! The Parasaurolophus CNC is a CNC router optimized, upscaled version of the laser version available on WoodMarvels.com. The original Parasaurolophus was my 37th laser model, and now my 8th CNC… things have changed a lot since then but this model is even stronger than the original! If you have a ShopBot or any other CNC router, you really want to give this easy [...]

I get interviewed by Gusto Sign in Indonesia!

Jon — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:51:25 +0000

The nice thing about running a mostly digital business is that everything you do is available to everybody else in the world as soon as it’s launched. I had a physical order kit a few months back from a customer in Indonesia… the traditional way to handle such an order is to get it cut at a major cutting hub or existing client with a laser shop along with associated transport and customs fees but then I got thinking. I [...]

Fried Fan

Jon — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:37:34 +0000

About two weeks ago, my laptop’s fan fried so I had to send it to HP to get fixed, now that I got my laptop back I’m hoping to get caught-up within the next few days and start releasing more stuff very soon!

Testimonial for Richard’s CNC Ford Model T (USA)

Jon — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:24:37 +0000

I got some great looking pictures of the CNC version of the WoodMarvels.com Ford Model T. Richard did a great job assembling this model, looks great!

Hitting 1 000 000 YouTube Video Views!

Jon — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:59:43 +0000

It’s taken 400 videos over the past few years but my YouTube.com account now has a total lifetime view count of 1,003,921! (front end stats lag behind backend ones apparently) What makes this interesting is that I can pretty easily date the videos based on the imagery shown… the worse it is, the older the video! No music = ancient first batch of videos ever used on WoodMarvels.com. So… here are the top 10 most viewed videos from across my [...]