That title is true. We have 3. But if it were up to her, we’d have 300. SO I’m digging around my shop saturday, and found a nice piece of 1/4" MDF so I decided to try one of the files she bought from Etsy before the pandemic happened. Hey I was gonna throw the MDF out anyway! Why not?!
It is funny you should post these three models. I just decided to do make doormat for my daughter for Christmas. I was looking to do something like this, only with four cats around the edge to match the number of cats he owns, and I selected these models for at least one if not more of the cats. My plan is to use the MPCNC to cut a stencil.
LOL that’s epic!!! My neighbor makes door mats like those. She uses her cricut to cut the vinyl then she weeds the pieces out of the vinyl that will be painted, and somehow she sticks it to the mat and spray paints it. I was thinking maybe you could use the MPCNC to cut them out in vinyl? I’m completely lost on that front sadly.
LOL If ya do make them, I’ll buy one from ya too hahaha Those are epic!
When I purchased the kit for my original MPCNC (Burly), I purchased a vinyl cutter with it, but I’ve never used it. I’m going to make the stencils out of wood. I have some scrap underlayment and paneling. My plan is to make several, individual stencils and mask off with paper rather than try and author a single large stencil for the whole mat.
How do you stencil things like the eyes though? With vinyl, you can use transfer paper to move the vinyl and stick it down. I’m trying to be negative. I am hopeful you have an idea.
I’ve not done this project yet, so I don’t have a definitive answer, and I only have to solve the this problem for a one-off gift, not a production run. For projects that have had similar problems, I’ve used repositionable spray adhesive. Or maybe I’ll use cat models that don’t suffer from this problem like the model used on the doormat I’ve referenced. I liked this particular graphic because it somewhat matches one of my daughter’s cats.
Back in the day before my CNC, that’s how I did things. Used repositionable spray adhesive on paper stencils and cut out from there. After one set was cut, I could use the flush trim bit in the router. Now, I have a CNC machine that can make my templates
Milled on my 49"x97" Lowrider V2 with 1/8" Single flute bit from Ryan. That is the size of the product as you buy it from the link, I didn’t size it, or edit it in any way, only made the toolpaths.
Here they are painted black. Word of advice. Don’t use MDF for things you wanna hang on your wall and showcase. Every fiber in the board sticks up when you paint it. And these pieces were entirely too hard to sand. So I used my razor knife as best I could around all the inside edges, and just let it go.
It’s all I’m gonna be able to see.
