One of a kind bridge

Before the large crown molding can go up around the living/dining room area we have to finish off the sides of the bridge that goes over the same area. I’ve been working on countless ideas for the bridge since well before we even started construction on the house. I’ve filled many pages of my sketchbook with these ideas but nothing clicked… until a couple of days ago.

I built a rough version of the file in Illustrator and then imported the file to EnRoute Pro.

The rough vectors needed a fair amount of reworking and tweaking. I only worked on one half of the bridge vectors, then deleted the roughs and duplicated and flipped the finals to form both sides of the bridge.
The scrolls would be raised to match the border and the background would feature the same butterflies as the panels on the window trim. Those areas are shown in grey.

The first step was to create a flat relief. Since the files were to be routed from 1″ thick Precision Board with three layers of butterflies

I then arranged the butterflies for the background. I would go through them three times selecting every third butterfly. They were made into reliefs of three different heights and then merged highest with the background.

The file was tool pathed in two passes – a rough using a 3/8″ ball nose bit with a 50% overlap and then a final pass using a 1/8″ ball nose bit with an 80% overlap.

A final offset path was programmed to cut the piece out using a 3/8″ cutter.
-dan

Published with permission from precisionboard.blogspot.com. Source.

More fancy

The giant crown molding production continued today and will for a few days yet. Today we routed the first of the rounded crown moldings that will top the living and dining room windows. I had to work with the material I had in stock and so they will be done in segments and joined , most likely up on the wall. Like the straight pieces routed yesterday they were done in two three inch thick layers. The tape measure beside them gives a better idea of scale. These things are large!

I’ll also cut a backer board from 1″ thick MDF that will go on first, building up the moldings even more. I can hardly wait to see them up! Stay tuned…
-dan

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Giant crown molding

We are finally at a point in the project where I can begin work on the giant crown moldings that go around the living and dining room and up and over the big round windows. We wanted them to match the smaller crown molding that is to go on the kitchen cupboards.

I traced the end of the molding and then imported that into EnRoute which I then traced to create the vectors needed.  I had to decide how big to create the molding and how many layers of Precision Board we would use.

The smaller hall molding vectors were also created at the same time.

The sweep two rails command was a quick and easy way to create the profiles I needed. I created them as meshes which I then merged (highest) with a zero height relief.

Then I used the slice too to take away the zero height background.

The curved moldings were built much the same way.

The moldings were routed from 3″ thick Precision Board . The big moldings were done in two layers while the smaller one will be done in one layer.

Here’s a pic of the molding mocked up. It will get a little sanding before I glue everything together.

 The curved moldings get routed tomorrow.

-dan

Published with permission from precisionboard.blogspot.com. Source.

Wainscot up and trim started

On January 1 I posted the text pieces of front window trim with the butterfly inserts. Since then I modified that test slightly and ran a second version of the test – just to make sure everyone liked the design. We agreed and then it was on to production for the actual windows.  I first carefully measured the windows for the trim. I knew it would be eight inches wide with a four inch butterfly insert. The top portion of the circle over the windows will be a giant crown molding that arches over the window and then goes around the room level at the eight foot level. LED lighting will be hidden into the top of it so it shines upward onto the ceiling. Making that giant crown molding still has me scratching my head.

But these were the starting vectors for the window – all created in EnRoute at actual size. The box indicates the bottom of the window frame.

I lengthened each piece to allow for slight variations that are bound to appear in the actual construction. Each piece will be trimmed to length by the finish carpenters The arch will be used to construct the crown molding. Like I did in the samples I crated back on New Year’s day the butterflies were randomly placed through the middle panels and then I built the layered relief.

The pieces were cut from 30 lb Precision Board on the MultiCam. I still have to cut the upper pieces of the window trim. And identical set will be cut for the dining room windows as well.
I can hardly wait to see them fastened in place. It should look pretty cool! Here’s a shot of the living room as it appeared tonight with the wainscot installed save for the top rail.
Stay tuned for more progress…
-dan

Published with permission from precisionboard.blogspot.com. Source.

Rapid Texture wainscot progress

Over the last while I’ve routed ten sheets of 30 lb Precision Board with Rapid Texture for the wainscoting.

In the last few days our finish carpenters have begun trimming the sheets to size and installing them in the new house. In preparation I also designed surrounds for the plugs. These would be cut and fit into the panelling to allow the electrical plug covers to sit flat on the textured panels.

I started by measuring up three styles of plugs…  singles, doubles and triples. The files would be built entirely in EnRoute. I then designed the vectors. They would be cut upside down with room for the plug box flanges which were about 1/10 ” thick. The centers (with the recesses for the flanges were built as a relief, and then the outside was cut as an offset cut. By not cutting all the way through to the spoil board I was able to maintain a vacuum so the pieces did not move. The centers were created as a zero height relief. Then the flange cut was created as a 0.65″ tall relief. The center was merged lowest to the flange relief.

I then duplicated and ganged the cut files which would be machined from three quarter inch thick 30 lb Precision Board on the MultiCam.

A larger version of the surround was created from a piece of MDF for the bass speaker grill. The pieces of Rapid Texture paneling were surrounded by thicker MDF for the borders.

The house is starting to look pretty cool inside.
-dan

Published with permission from precisionboard.blogspot.com. Source.