Shop coaster

Ok, so don’t laugh. :smiley:

I’m taking baby steps here learning the software tools, the process and the lowrider. I was reading the forums and sipping a g&t and decided I needed a coaster for my drink. I have a branch from a honey locust tree (ugly wood, but free from the yard) and sliced a round.


Fastened it with painter’s tape and ca glue

Created some surfacing gcode with FreeCAD for a cheap 3/8" two flute straight router bit and surfaced it

The lines showing there could barely be felt and sanded out pretty easily to look like this

I added some boiled linseed oil, now it looks like a well aged cutting board

I had to learn a little bit about Inkscape to create some text for carving, then used Estlcam to make the carving gcode and ended up with this

I know it’s a silly little trinket and the text isn’t aligned very nice, but it’s my first make, I learned a lot, and I can keep it in the shop forever as a reminder. :sunglasses:

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It’s not silly at all, making your first piece with your self built machine is quite significant! Congrats :clap:

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Thanks!

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No judgement here.

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Yvan, that’s quite a machine and your coaster is much larger than mine. :yum:

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Cool project. I love projects like this where the end result might seem simple, for lack of a better term, but you learn a LOT on the way there!

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If that coaster is anything like that first crown I drew, it will mean a lot to you for a long time. Congrats on getting through the whole process on your own. Cool project!

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Thanks Ryan, appreciate it. I’ve really enjoyed the build so far, I applaud you for your design. I bought the complete package from you and was very impressed with the attention to detail. I think I had about 4 6-32 nuts left over at the end and that’s it. :slight_smile:

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Perfect, everyone loves leftovers!!!

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Yeah man. This thing was in your head, and you used a machine you built to make it a real thing that you can use. I was just telling my wife last week that part still hasn’t gotten old for me.

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That is why the catch phrase is, “V1 Engineering bringing things in your head to life”

Well at least it should be. :crazy_face:

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It looks fine to me, but if you want to experiment, you could take a photo of the wood and import it into Inkscape, then use the pen to generate a path that matches the shape of the wood - then flow the text to that rather than a circle.

The ‘path/trace bitmap’ menu should generate the path automatically, but I find it usually needs some manual clean-up, so it’s often quicker and easier to do it manually. Either way, I love the ability to take a fuzzy, wonky scan and carve it into wood.

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That’s a cool setup, but I like @davem’s coaster better.

I’m a bit of a light weight really and his coaster is more appropriately sized for my tolerance level…

Your coaster looks like something paul bunyan could use. 8^)

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Thanks for the tip, I’ll have to try that!

It’s for a flagon ?

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Awesome coaster your first child as they say, its all down hill from here. Great Job!

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Thanks Stan. Great name btw, same as my dad and my son! :grinning:

:+1: :+1: :+1:

My Dad and my Son as well, 4 generations of Stanley’s

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haha… Brilliant… spontanity fueld in part by GnT I like the minimal spoil board diminesions as well

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