Week 4: Computer Controlled Machining
I’ve been excited about this week’s assignment from the beginning of the semester, and I had planned to build the furniture that I needed for my apartment. I needed a coffee table, and also two bar chairs for my kitchen counter, so I decided to make them all.
Part one: Coffee Table
I’ve always been fascinated by the way that contour lines and contour surfaces make an illusion of curved surface, while the elements themselves are planar. Also, press-fit joints work very well on furniture making, as it makes the assembly process so easy and amusing. Combining these two, I designed a curved surface as the base of my table in Rhino, and I wrote a grasshopper definition to build contour surfaces and turn them into press-fit fabrication elements.
Home Depot trip!
If you are a next year student looking at this page, I’m strongly advising you to go to home depot! It’s so exciting, and you can get whatever you need. I wanted to build my table with “nice wood”, and also needed a glass for the top of my table.
Fabrication: Computer-Controlled Machining:
For cutting the pieces, I used CR Onsrud 4’ x 8’ CNC router, and used Mastercam as output controller. After importing 2D Rhino drawings into the Mastercam, I chose toolpaths – one for the cuts and one for the surface milling on the top edges of the table – where glass is supposed to fit- . Then, I exported the GCode file from mastercam so that I can be used in ONSRUD controller.
Assembly:
After sanding the edges to make them smooth and clean, I started to assemble the pieces. My initial objective was to not use glue on the joints, but after assembling the elements for the first time, I noticed that in order to make this table a real useable one, I need to use glue to fix the parts on their places.
Final Product!
Part Two: Kitchen Counter Stool:
The most important factor in designing the stools was that I wanted to be able to assemble and dissemble them very easily, so that they don’t take too much space at my apartment, and let me be able to assemble them whenever I have guests over and dissemble them again.
The workflow for fabrication of these pieces were exactly the same as the coffee table, so I’ll just leave the pictures here!
If you are a next year student looking at this page, I’m strongly advising you to go to home depot! It’s so exciting, and you can get whatever you need. I wanted to build my table with “nice wood”, and also needed a glass for the top of my table.
Fabrication: Computer-Controlled Machining:
For cutting the pieces, I used CR Onsrud 4’ x 8’ CNC router, and used Mastercam as output controller. After importing 2D Rhino drawings into the Mastercam, I chose toolpaths – one for the cuts and one for the surface milling on the top edges of the table – where glass is supposed to fit- . Then, I exported the GCode file from mastercam so that I can be used in ONSRUD controller.
Assembly:
After sanding the edges to make them smooth and clean, I started to assemble the pieces. My initial objective was to not use glue on the joints, but after assembling the elements for the first time, I noticed that in order to make this table a real useable one, I need to use glue to fix the parts on their places.
Final Product!
Part Two: Kitchen Counter Stool:
The most important factor in designing the stools was that I wanted to be able to assemble and dissemble them very easily, so that they don’t take too much space at my apartment, and let me be able to assemble them whenever I have guests over and dissemble them again.
The workflow for fabrication of these pieces were exactly the same as the coffee table, so I’ll just leave the pictures here!
After sanding the edges to make them smooth and clean, I started to assemble the pieces. My initial objective was to not use glue on the joints, but after assembling the elements for the first time, I noticed that in order to make this table a real useable one, I need to use glue to fix the parts on their places.
Final Product!
Part Two: Kitchen Counter Stool:
The most important factor in designing the stools was that I wanted to be able to assemble and dissemble them very easily, so that they don’t take too much space at my apartment, and let me be able to assemble them whenever I have guests over and dissemble them again.
The workflow for fabrication of these pieces were exactly the same as the coffee table, so I’ll just leave the pictures here!