More trim

There are many files and hundreds (perhaps thousands) of pieces to route for the new house. We are concentrating on the outside trim these day and keeping the MultiCam running day and night. The last few days we’ve been working on the round window trims. The theme is hearts as an insert in the heavy woodgrain. The hearts will be vertical, no matter what the angle of the trim. This means a lot of the pieces have to be custom designed and cut to fit. The parts were designed entirely in EnRoute. The hundreds of hearts were each randomly placed by hand.

I first selected the backgrounds and created a flat relief that was 0.5″ tall. The hearts were then selected individually in three passes making sure the ones selected did not overlap. The three passes were made into flat relief 0.8″, 0.7″ and 0.6″ respectively. After each pass selecting the hearts and creating the reliefs I merged them to the background relief and then deleted them to minimize confusion. In retrospect I could have created the hearts on different layers.

The reliefs that contained the hearts were done on slightly oversize reliefs which would be merged (highest) to the actual heart inserts. This allowed me to create slightly different shaped panels that were custom fit to the front and back windows.

I then selected the larger panels and created a relief that was 0.7″ tall.

The curved trim pieces were 5-7 feet long and were to be heavy woodgrain. I imported the sandblasted woodgrain from the TEXTURE MAGIC collection. This was enlarged to fit the curved piece inside a section of grain I liked and then applied at 0.2″

Now it was time to merge (REPLACE) the fancy insert. I could also have used the merge lowest command but there was a chance some of the wood grain might have showed through the higher points.

 Once I loved the original heart inserts out of the way the pieces were ready to be too pathed and sent off to the MultiCam. They will be routed from one inch thick 30 lb Precision Board.

 Some of the pieces are still on the MultiCam but the ones up on the house are looking VERY cool!

Stay tuned for more…
-dan

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

2D fun

Now that we use EnRoute and our MultiCam router I couldn’t imagine building a house like ours without these marvelous tools. We’ve designed and cut hundreds of pieces already for the project and will be adding a while bunch more before we are done.

The files we created and cut today were simple 2D shapes that will be combined to form something far more complex.

Today’s task was to design and cut the arched ceiling supports of the long hallway through the center of the house. The arch supports had to accommodate the wiring (we weren’t allowed to drill into the trusses) and the vacuum pipes.

I measured things up and then sat down at my desk to do some designing. I first designed the arched section and then added on all the bits and pieces.

I combined the two outside and center tabs with the arch. These would be used to screw into the ceiling joists.

Then I used he jigsaw tool to remove the cutouts that would hold the vacuum tubes and the wiring.

The resulting pieces were copied and stacked in readiness for cutting. I used a 3/8″ cutter to do the cuts in the 3/4″ plywood.

It took me a lot longer to screw the many pieces into position than it did to design and cut them.

Next up is the more complex entry way. Stay tuned…
-dan

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

CNC house

The MultiCam has been busy in the last few days routing the many pieces we needed to create the vaulted ceilings in the upstairs bonus rooms, and the living/dining room. As the machine cut the pieces effortlessly it brought back memories of many hours cutting similar pieces by hand back in the days before we got the CNC router.  It is a whole lot faster process these days and much more accurate as well! With EnRoute software making designing of curved support structure quick and easy and the MultiCam making the physical process effortless and extremely fast we are doing things that could only be imagined previously.
As each batch came off the MultiCam I loaded the pieces onto the lawn mower trailer and drove them up to the house in front.
Some of our crew is working on finishing up the facia board. The eyebrow portions came off the router more than a week ago. We layered up two pieces of 3/4 plywood. Now we are stapling on diamond lath in preparation for a sculptured layer of fiberglass reinforced concrete which will resemble wood grain wood when we are finished. Today’s pieces will be screwed to the rear portion of the eyebrow facia and a matching piece to the wall. It took about a half an hour to design and cut  a whole sheet of pieces, something that would have taken far longer by hand.
Tomorrow I’ll post some pictures of the pieces installed upstairs in the bonus rooms. The vaulted cringing structures look pretty cool! Stay tuned…
-dan

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

Firs trim installed

The new house is coming along great! The roof sheeting is a couple of days from completion. While the carpenters were busy on the roof we were busy on the ground floor welding up the framework for the trees and then attaching the lath for the plasterwork to follow. At long last we are now ready to begin icing the cake.
The trim pieces around the house door were installed today. This means we can now begin the applying and sculpting the fiberglass reinforced concrete. We do the first tree tomorrow.
Today we attached the trim around the door which we routed yesterday. We’ll trowel the fiberglass reinforced concrete right up to it and then sculpt it to blend it as seamlessly as possible.

Stay tuned to see it come together!
-dan

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

Final house trim at last

The house is coming together quickly. The carpenters are busy sheeting the roof. While they are up there we busy working on the lower walls. The tree armatures are welded and the expanded diamond lath is in place. Now at last it is time for us to get working on the trim. Today the first pieces came off the router. From now on the router will be busy.
The first project was the trim around the front door. 
I started with the vectors I had created when I made the window bucks. I drew up a couple of new ovals and then drew a diagonal line on each side. these lines would be the separation lines between the three boards we would create. I used the jigsaw tool to create the three boards.
Then I used the offset tool to create the there panels inside the boards.
I positioned the hearts through the panel. The panels were made into flat reliefs .3″ tall. Then I selected various hearts that did not connect or touch through the panel. These were made into a relief 0.8″ tall. These were then merged (highest) to the flat relief. 
Once the first batch was merged I deleted them. Then I selected the next batch of hearts and created new reliefs that were 0.8″ tall. These were then merged (highest) to the base relief.
After the second batch was merged and deleted it only left a few hearts which were selected and then made into reliefs 0.6″ tall. They were treated like the previous ones. 
The outside vectors were then made into a new relief. I added a woodgrain bitmap to create the woodgrain. Then I used the merge tool to REPLACE RELIEF to insert the heart panel I had created previously as described above. 
This was tool pathed using a 3/8″ bit to rough things out. A final pass (with an 80% overlap) was done with a 1/8″ ball nose bit. The final step was to cut the pieces out using an offset cut.
Tomorrow I’ll cut the last piece and we’ll be fastening them into place. I can hardly wait to se them up!
-dan

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