Have a nice summer, from me and Scrapy, see you in September

It's been a productive season. I would like to thank you all for your love and support.

I wish a happy summer to all.

See you again in September with more woodworking projects!

:)

How I made my first Greek fishing boat model

I have always wanted to make a traditional Greek boat model. I made this one out of plywood and spruce. 

I would really like to thank naftotopos for the information I found about naval modelism.

First of all I designed the templates of the hull based on a basic blueprint.

I then glued the templates on a piece of plywood and cut out the pieces of the centerboard out of a piece of 6mm marine plywood. This is actually called the fish bone of the boat.

I then sanded the parts and glued them together.

Using a feather board on my table saw, I cut thin stripes of spruce.

Using nails as cIamps I glued the two upper pieces of the carcass.

I then cut more thin stripes. I bended them to shape using a pair of pliers. One side of the pliers was covered with a brass piece to prevent the pliers from cutting the wood all the way. I also used a chisel to shape the strips to my needs. I used pins to act as clamps for glueing the stripes in place.

Using my rotary tool, I sanded everything with a mini drum sander. I glued in small pieces of wood for the big gaps and then filled the rest with wood filler. After the wood filler dried I sanded everything smooth.

I then cut a couple of spruce pieces on the bandsaw to make the paddles. I cut as much material as I could on the bandsaw and then finished shaping them with a sharp knife and sandpaper.

I then cut the pieces of the base on the bandsaw. This will act as a display base for my boat.

I glued the floor pieces of my boat. Using the rotary tool I cut out grooves on the ribs of the boat. On those grooves I glued the side pieces.

To create some wider stock, I cut two thin boards on the bandsaw. I jointed them on my hand plane (which was mounted upside down in my vise). I then glued those pieces together. I clamped them on a clamping jig I made. The jig is two boards screwed on the bench. A wedge is hammered in place to force the two pieces against each other.

I then glued the back and front pieces of the top of my boat. To bend those pieces to shape, I dipped them in water and forced them against the tip of my heat gun.

I then glued on the rest of the top. I trimmed the top flush using a chisel and my rotary tool with a drum sanding bit.

I then glued a few more details in place and cut the twarts of the boat in shape.

I then shaped the handle bases on a piece of sandpaper. I then glued them in place.

To make the handles, I chucked a piece of square stock on my drill and turned it to shape with a piece of sandpaper. 

I then painted my boat using oil paints. I did that because those paints are water proof!

I used the traditional colors of the Greek fishing boat. White, blue and red.

At this point my little model boat was ready. It came out nice for a first attempt on the subject!

I hope you like it!

Donating my old X-Carve to Automation Engineering Department

Recently Inventables sent to me a new X-Carve cnc machine. So I decided to donate my old X-Carve

 to Piraeus University of Applied Sciences (Technological Education Institution of Piraeus) Automation Engineering Department. And to be more specific to the Mechatronics-Robotics-CNC laboratory.

The guys there do really interesting work and I think their lab is the perfect home for an X-Carve. 

I want to thank Inventables once again for sending me the machine in the first place.

I also want to thank the people from the Automation Engineering Department.

Many thanks to:

Georgios Chamilothoris

Professor, Department of Automation, TEI Piraeus.

Makis Chatzopoulos

Makis is involved in the laboratory teaching of the 'Mechatronics'

and 'Motion control' courses.

Evgenia

Kostas Ntontos

Eleni Simeonaki

How I made an experimental wooden fidget spinner

First of all I cut the basic shape of my fidget spinner on my new X-Carve cnc machine. I cut it out of a scrap pine piece.  The cnc leaves tabs behind in order for the cut piece not to get loose.

I used a sharp chisel, to remove the tabs.

I then sanded the piece using a sanding block.

I chucked a wooden dowel on my drill and used it as a lathe to sand the dowel until it fitted snugly inside the metal bearing. I then hammered the dowel in the bearing.

I then mixed some two part epoxy and glued the bearing inside the spinner.

To make the caps of the fidget spinner, I used a straight chisel on the lathe to make a cylinder that fitted my needs. The using a drill chuck on my lathe’s tailstock I drilled a hole. I then used the parting tool to part off the two caps.

I then glued the caps on the fidget spinner using wood glue. After the glue dried, I trimmed the dowel flush, using my flush trim saw.

I then made a small pot from a piece of sheet metal. I cut it’s basic shape using sheet metal scissors. I then used a ball headed hammer and a curved plate. I hammered the pot against the plate and made it curved.

I then added copper pipe solder in the pot and using my blow torch I melted the metal. I casted the metal in the inner cylinders of the fidget spinner. This metal parts give the wings of the spinner more weight and as a result it spins better.

I sanded the excess metal from the casting flush, using my disc sander.

My little experimental fidget spinner was now ready, I hope you like it!

Assembly and Review of the New X-Carve cnc machine

The company Inventables sent to me their X-Carve cnc machine back in 2015 to test and review. Recently they sent me the 2017 model of the X-carve. They have also sent me their new dust collection system.

I asked for the 500mm x-carve because that fit’s my needs best.

I begun the assembly with the working area. Moved to the side plates, then the x-carriage and the z-axis. I then assembled the gantry and the rails. I moved to belting the machine.

I added the new Spindle which a more powerful router by Dewalt. This makes the machine much stronger and faster than the previews model.

I then added the wiring. The wiring is much easier this time because the wires are nicely labeled and easy to fit were they supposed to go. I also really liked the new drag chains which are able to open from above. This way it is really easy to place all the wires inside them.

A really cool new feature is the x-controller. This is actually a box that contains all the electronics of the machine. You can also pause and resume the carving process from this piece of hardware. The whole thing is mounted on a side board. 

Those new features make the machine much more ergonomic and compact compared to the previews X-Carve.

I then calibrated the machine and I was ready to carve. 

Finally I added the dust collection system. This is a really cool new accessory. It reduces the dust and also cleans the carving area, which let’s the carving bit do a better job.

Overall the 2017 X-Carve is much easier to assemble and also is a faster and stronger machine. It’s hardware is much better quality and the whole thing is more compact and ergonomic.

Also Easel ( Inventables online carving software ) has become much better with many new interesting apps. I would still like it to be able to carve more complex 3D designs though. I hope in future it will.

Overall I loved the new X-Carve. There’s always room for more and better development of the tool. I am sure Inventables will keep on evolving their awesome machine.

Many thanks Inventables, I hope I will put the X-carve in good use!