Help with the Fuzzies

Discussion about the CNC Shark Pro Plus

Moderators: al wolford, sbk, Bob, Kayvon

Post Reply
tonybell9699
Posts: 48
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2014 9:04 pm

Help with the Fuzzies

Post by tonybell9699 »

Hi all,

I am getting around quite well now with my Shark, amazing how well the tutorials and this forum can reduce the learning curve!

I work with alot of Poplar, I know it is not the best to work with, but it is the only lumber that I can find around here that is both affordable and FLAT! lol, the select pine is almost unusable as it is bowed in the middle ect.

By as you can imagine I get a ton of fuzzies, I have increased the depth of the shark to account for the sanding I need to do do, but was curious if there is any tricks out there that can help reduce the sanding time?

thanks!!
Tony

tonydude
Posts: 1581
Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2010 9:23 am
Location: Buffalo,NY

Re: Help with the Fuzzies

Post by tonydude »

Put a coat of finish on first it'll cut down some of the fuzzzies. I do that on all my carvings. I use cherry,oak maple, pine.

Tony
Buffalo,NY

"What will matter is not what you bought but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave”

Aspire 11.015, photo vcarve, cnc mako shark extended bed with the new upgraded HD 5 gantry with Led pendent.

milo30
Posts: 553
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 9:21 pm

Re: Help with the Fuzzies

Post by milo30 »

There are a couple of things that you can do. Depends on what kind of carving you are doing. If it is letters or small areas that are hard to get to, the simplest is to hit it with a light spray of shellac and then rerun the carving .01 deeper. That can be time consuming depending on the complexity of the carving BUT sometimes it ends up faster and easier than manually doing it. You can also by a sanding mop and attach to a drill or drill press. Using very light pressure you can knock them off but have to be careful of using too much pressure and sanding away detail. For areas like print, I bought a dremel tool and use a pointed bit and you can knock the fuzzies out of the small recesses pretty quickly. I also found a small scraper set which is a handle with a variety of different scraper blades and they can take care of larger areas.

I used to work with poplar a lot for the same reasons as you. I didn't like pine as it had a tendency to warp on me occasionally. I eventually went to oak because it wasn't much more expensive. Do yourself a favor and find yourself a small sawmill. You can probably find one on craigslist or go to somewhere like Rocklers and ask them. They probably have a card for someone in the area. If you can't find that then find a lumber yard. You might pay the same price as the big box stores but the quality is much better.

If you haven't tried it yet, find some corian on craigslist and give that a try. It is dusty but it carves like butter and easy to finish with a spray of paint.

Post Reply