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The very idea of digital woodworking is something new and strange to a lot of woodworkers, so it’s only natural there are a lot of questions. For many, the big question is “where do I start?” The [...]

A Desktop size CNC at an Entry Level Price One of the questions I’m most often asked is “would you do a review of an affordable CNC?”  Up to now, there’ve been few choices for woodworkers [...]

My last several posts have been about how the BARN workbench vise chops were designed. In this post, I’ll show you how the CNC was programmed for machining with CAM software. I use RhinoCAM [...]

In my last few posts, I showed how two different vise chops designs were created for the BARN workbenches. One technique was based on an easy to use 3D CAD tool: extrusion. Armed with a squiggly [...]

In my last post, I used Rhino3D CAD software to create a 3D ripple for one of the BARN Workbench vise chops. 3D drawing tools were used to take a simple squiggly line and revolve it around a [...]

In earlier posts, I used CAD software to create the 2D design for the BARN Workbench vise chop and the I built a pin registration board for two-sided machining on my CNC. Rather than a square and [...]

In previous posts, I drew the basic 2D curved shape for the BARN Workbench vise chop using CAD software. Because I was still at the beginning stage of the project, I also designed and built a jig [...]

In my previous post about making the BARN workbench vise chop, I shared the basic CAD design work for the project. In Rhino3D, I created the curved 2D design – the chop and a simple box [...]

3D Design and 3D Carving using Digital Tools I’ve been writing about Digital Woodworking and CNCs for a while now and when it comes to techniques, for the most part, I’ve kept the topics focused [...]

Cutting parts with a CNC is a 2.5D process. It’s not quite 3D and a bit more than 2D. When you’re cutting parts, the third axis on a CNC —the Z axis, just needs to cut at selected depths. You …

Last December when I started this series on the Maslow CNC, my goal was to evaluate the $350 kit with a focus on how it might fit into a hobbyist woodworker’s world — the kind of machine a [...]

The Maslow CNC is a CNC kit that costs just $350. For that price, you should expect a few compromises. For one thing, you have to put it together. Of course you’ll get the key mechanical, [...]