Week 7

This week´s assignment was to make something big. It did not take a long time to decide what to make. We here in fab lab Vestmannaeyjar have talked before about that it would be a fun and a good project to make computer desk´s for the lab because the the ones we use are not design for that purpose, just some old tables that we had lying around. Frosti also asked that one of us made a lectern for him, since the school wants the one he borrowed few months ago back. Me and Baldvin decided to make the computer desk’s and Aron went and granted Frosti his wish for the lectern.

I started off by drawing few ideas on a paper and i chose the one i thought looked the best. Then to get a better idea of how i would design it in a 3D software, i made a 3D model in cardboard and there i added a few features to the design like a back wall to the desk for better support and a hole for the cables.

Next it was time to draw it up in a 3D software. I wanted to try Rhino first, but i have no experience with that software and after some time i saw that i would not be able to learn on the software and draw the table in time so i decided to draw it on a software that i had at least some experience with. So i went with SketchUp which i had not tried in quite some time but i was really quick getting the hang of it. I drew the table in one day and gave it press fit joint, but here is a good video on press fit joints in SketchUp. I also gave the table a drawing of the NMI tree on each side, but NMI is the institution that funds the fab labs here in Iceland.

The next step was to import the SketchUp as an vector into Vcarve pro. There i started off by giving the software the size and thickness of the material i was going to use and there i saw that i would need to plates for the desk. But before cutting the desk out i first made a test file to know the offset of the bit i was going to use, i made a small rectangle with a 100mm line inside it. The bit was suppose to be ¼ of a inch (6,35mm) but was actually 6,1mm. Then we made a new bit in Vcarve with the right dimension which we would use. After making the new settings for the bit it was time to get the desk ready for the shopbot. I started putting dogbone fillets on all the slots, next i made 1cm hole’s for the slots on top plate of the desk by using the pocked function in Vcarve, then i made an inside profile for everything that i was going to cut through which were inside the desk sides like the slots or the NMI tree’s and then finally i made an outside profile for the desk sides. Then i saved it all as a shopbot file.

Cutting out the desk was a time consuming process, but that was mostly because of some error in our shopbot software or our computer. The first thing i did before cutting the desk was to secure the plate on the machine and then to adjust the machine. First i set the zero points for the X and Y axes and then i zeroed the Z axe with the Z zero plate, next i warmed up the spindle for about 4 min and then i was ready to go. But sometimes the shopbot software crashed and the machine would stop, so i had to keep an close eye on the command line number so i would know where i should start if it would crash. And when it would happen i went to “File” - “Go to line” and there i would write the line i was at and from there the machine would start.

After cutting out all the pieces, it was time to snap them together. The first thing i did was to sand the pieces to make the edges smoother and so nobody would get splinters while using the desk. Then it was time to hammer the pieces together with a rubber hammer, that process when pretty well but the hammer did leave a few spots on one of the side, but fortunately that was a side that turns inwards.

After hammering the everything together the desk was ready, and it was time to suit it with a computer. I am quite pleased with the results and the only thing i would change about the table is maybe putting the hole for the cables right behind the screen and another hole on the inner side to the computer to hide the cables better. I really enjoyed this week and had fun making the desk.

Files