Cherry Vanity

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Phil B
Posts: 20
Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2010 10:31 am

Cherry Vanity

Post by Phil B »

This wasn’t made on a Shark but it illustrates what can be done using a tool like it.

This is a vanity cabinet I made in 2009. It’s Cherry throughout except for the tree inlay which is Walnut. As you can guess the inlay was made using a technique with Vcarve. What you might not see is that the curved drawer and divider frames were also cut on the cnc as was the side frame, it’s raised panel, the curved bottom face frame member, the tapered pockets in the legs, as well as the mortises in the legs.

PMB
http://benchmark.20m.com


Image

Jon
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2010 9:09 am

Re: Cherry Vanity

Post by Jon »

Wow! Nice job.

Jon

kingjoe2@aol.com
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2010 10:34 am

Re: Cherry Vanity

Post by kingjoe2@aol.com »

Phil B.,

Very impressive. As I read how you applied the software and CHC Shark to achieve the results I was i awe of the possibilities. I would like to learn more about the processes you used to bring it all together.

Joe K.

Phil B
Posts: 20
Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2010 10:31 am

Re: Cherry Vanity

Post by Phil B »

First, I have a fully equipped shop so tasks that are better done on other tools are. For instance, the rectangular center doors are cut out on a table saw, not the cnc. This in effect describes how I use the cnc, quite often I'm putting dimensioned parts onto it for various secondary operations. Anything curved was cut on the cnc.

In the case of the vanity, it was all drawn out in cad. That allowed me to do dxf take-offs and do cut-outs like the lower face frame member and the curved drawer dividers and such. These are very simple cuts.

The mortises in the legs are pockets, the separate side and face frames fit into these. Also pretty simple. I used a couple of drill press vises that I can bolt to the bed to hold these in place for milling. I've since started using a "mortise rail" for stuff like this. The mortise rail is nothing more than a long ~3x3 beam bolted to the bed and I just clamp stock to it

The side frames are cut-outs, the panel that fits into it is as well but prior to being cut out it had a 0.25 deep vcarve profile made with a 2" ball nose cutter, this gives the raised panel effect.

In the case of this particular panel, the raise field is not a consistent distance away from the edges making a bearing guided cutter in a router table not ideal. I have also used raised panel cutters in the machine but you really need a vacuum table to do it. This http://www.vac-clamp.com/ is what I use, I have two which can be bolted to the table.

The inlay started out as a jpg image which I cleaned up and stretched to suit. This literally is only the second inlay I had ever done. I learned this the hard way; vcarve has a way of turning a bitmap into vectors for machining but in many cases the result is not very ideal. It can leave lots of loop-de-do's and whatnot that you really don't want to have to deal with.

My process is to bring the bitmap into cad and trace it by hand. In this case the tree was done in entirety, overlaid onto the drawer and door front positions, then separate take-aways were done. This leaves a dxf pattern for each drawer and door.

This then is taken into vcarve and I followed the general process outlined here: http://www.vectric.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=7241 I deviated a little from this, On the pocket, I used a flat bottom depth of 0.25" with a 90deg vee cutter. On the inlay, I used a 0.20" start depth, a 0.20" flat depth with a 90 degree vee cutter.

You create a positive and negative to go together then mill off the top layer after the glue has dried.

Long winded description, hope you are able to get something out of it.

PMB
http://benchmark.20m.com

MoHawk
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2010 9:08 pm
Location: Mid Missouri

Re: Cherry Vanity

Post by MoHawk »

Phil,
I really enjoyed your post and info on the Cherry Vanity. I am a retired Electrical Engineer with 20+ yrs of experience using AutoCAD. I also do pistol smithing and would like to build custom pistol boxes. I've been contemplating buying the Shark Pro Plus. Your post is exactly the type of project I wanted to see. I will buy the Shark this coming year. Thanks for the insperation! :D

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