[Woodworkers] Hey Royce

[Jason Beam]

Not to pollute the memorial thread for Joe, I thought I'd start a new 
one to answer your question...

Royce so succulently said....

Speaking of topics to talk about....has anyone took the plunge into CNC 
stuff? and how is that working out for you if you have?

I have looked and am thinking about making my own...might not know what 
I am getting myself into, but looks interesting if nothing else.

To which I alluringly reply....

Yessir. Around 2012, I designed and built my first CNC router. Fillmed 
some of it back in the day and put it on YouTube. At first it was just 
to tinker around and such. I would occasionally cut stuff for other 
folks but nothing super serious. Then in 2016, I had enough workin' for 
the man and quit my lucrative programming job. Spent the rest of that 
summer living the good life sitting on my ass doin' nothin. Ahh, memories.

My machine was built of mainly an MDF torsion box for the table and a 
bunch of structural aluminum shapes (channel, angle, etc). To my 
surprise, it also did an okay job cutting some metals like aluminum and 
brass. That summer I freeloaded, someone asked me to make 'em a branding 
iron and I figured what the hell. Brass is pretty easy to cut, why not.

Well little did I know what lay before me. After some gentle nudging 
from friends, I listed a branding iron on Etsy and what a shock. I woke 
up the next day to 3 orders. Just like that. Holy dang. So I listed a 
couple more designs and that first two weeks turned out to be my highest 
earning two weeks in history. Better than my lucrative programming job!

Well, I says, looks to me like I found myself a way to earn a living 
without actually needing to wear pants. It's been  3-1/2 years now. I've 
since designed and built a dedicated CNC machine to do irons and free up 
Ol' Bertha to get some much needed love. That first machine ran hundreds 
of hours of irons for the first 3 years. I'm shocked it still works, 
frankly, seein' as how I'm the knucklehead what built it.

Anywho - Yep - CNC is within reach. If you're a tinkerer, building one 
is quite a lot of fun and challenging. I'll give you the secret to 
building a good machine: Don't cheap out and make rigidity your 
priority. You'll thank me later.

Anywho 2, Electric Boogaloo ... If'n you wanna dig into it - hop in our 
chat room, or jump on that same network and join #cnc and I'll blather 
endlessly until you decide to just buy one ready-made.


HTH


-- 
Jason Beam
Sacramento, CA

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