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04 Drill and Mill

OCT 12, 2015 ||| Skills: Rhino, ShopBot ||| Material: OSB board, PLA filament

This week we were asked to design something big to be fabricated with a ShopBot. Unlike the laser cutting cardboard, CNC milling OSB board, while computer-controlled, is not the most precise process. The drill-bit has a diameter of 1/4" and the material is very rough. So I wanted to create a shoe organizer with some 3D printed joints to create a contrast and refinement in a functional piece of furniture. The milling was straight-forward and successful for the most part, all the joints snapped together nicely. The only problem I ran into was the buckling of the board, which caused the loosening of the drill-bit during the print job and I had to stop and reorient to finish the job. So an important lesson learned was that when drilling the board down, its important to place the curve side up. Also, I found that there's a lot of sanding and post-processing involved and it's almost impossible for the cuts to be perfect without cutting into the base board underneath. After the milled parts were assembled, Dan helped me to clamp everything down while the glue is drying. So once again, unlike working with cardboard, wood has the tendency to buckle, so even though I had designed it more or less like a press-fit, the cabinet would not stay together based on friction alone.Next, I printed the the 3D prints on the Makerbot. Even though they turned out nicely, one thing I've neglected is that I forgot to specify the fill density to be 100%. By setting it to 70% in order to save time, the hinges turned out to not be robust enough to carry the rotational of force of opening and closing the doors.

Mill File // STL Hinge File