Heh.... 

Last week, I finally finished cleaning up the workshop, and declared myself ready for a new project.  I met briefly with Drew and Matthew (two new members interested in some fun projects), and their parents at Milo, and we agreed to start working together a few weeks from now.  Until then, we'll communicate over the web on this site.

However, that leaves a few weeks of mischief to get into between now and then. 

Marshall and I sat down and agreed that a cool project to build would be a CNC machine.  (He suggested it, I agreed).  This is a cutting tool (such as a router, a rotozip, or a mill), which is controlled by computer, to cut shapes automatically.  They can either be 2D shapes (by cutting pieces out of plywood or sheet metal), or they can be 3D shapes (like carving a large block of wood or plastic).  Additionally, it's possible to create 3D shapes from many layers of 2D pieces, by stacking and laminating plywood pieces, foam pieces, etc.  Then, those 3D shapes can either be the final product, or can serve as the "mold" from which to make fiberglass lay-ups, or ceramic castings, etc.

I put this on as a "potential future project" on the Projects list of this site.

Then I sent out smoke signals the next day, asking my technically-oriented friends if they'd like to join us.  Coincidentally, the same day Marshall and I decided to do CNC work, our friend Mike had made the same decision, and indeed had purchased some Printed Circuit Board (PCB) material to etch his own circuits for a CNC machine.  Lucky syzygy! :-)  With his help, I think we can start in earnest.

Originally we decided we'd start small, and build the example project described on the Instructables site.  However, I figured if we're going to spend the effort to build a small CNC machine, we may as well spend nearly the same amount of effort and build a beefy one. :-)  Thus, I bought a 3-axis stepper motor kit from Stepperworld.com, and this evening we'll be making decisions about what kind of cutting tools we'll use.

I also recently bought a 40 amp plasma cutter.  Perhaps we can do CNC machining, routing, carving -and- plasma cutting. :-)

I think it's time to start a new blog about this project. :-D