We have appreciate the time we live in.
I am amazed and grateful that personal milling machines, like the OtherMill, are a thing.
They put an immense power in our hands, allowing us to materialize many things we can think of in a matter of minutes.
For this assignment, I wanted to experience the complete process of designing and making a simple piece from beginning to end without complicating what the thing is, but rather learn about the process and about the possible mistakes that you can make.
Process
Design
In order to gain more confidence in using the OtherMill, I decided to make a simple object that required different skills. Both cutting and engraving were a must, but I also wanted to spend some time looking for a nice material in the material bin at ITP.
So, the piece to fabricate was the following:
The piece has a very simple form, but it contains engraving and cutting through.
Using the OtherMill
After a revision with Ben, the design was ready to be ported to Bantam Tools. I downloaded the acrylic and plywood settings, inputed all the measurements and took the OtherMill for a spin.
First attempt:
Hallway through the milling process the piece popped off. I didn't add enough tape on the part that was getting actually milled (lesson learned). I hit the emergency break immediately, got everything out, vacuumed the machine, re-homed the spindle and tried again.
Second attempt:
The piece popped off again!
I went to the shop and cut the material in half to exert less torque on the piece. Ben helped me fix the new material for a third time. Turns out, removable double-sided tape is not good...
After setting up everything again and recalibrating the machine, it was go time.
Third and final attempt:
The changes in tape and material size seemed to help, but next time I'll use regular double-sided tape.
Final result
The final piece looks pretty good!
This exercise taught me everything I needed about the OtherMill in order to continue a path of better fabrication. I will continue to use it for all possible ITP projects, and I hope to start experimenting with other materials such as aluminum and plywood.
Thanks to Ben for all his help during the process.