Full head of steam

Contrary to popular belief, I didn't get zapped into oblivion with one of my own ray guns. I have been knee deep in traveling and projects.  I must admit I allowed myself to get a bit overloaded on projects and had to spend some time getting caught up.  Paint work (murals) have been great and I certainly enjoy them, but I've been hungry to get some carving done!  The Shopbot has been calling to me for weeks and I just couldn't take it any more...
I thought it might be a fun project to make a "beer" sign with some steampunk funk.  I began with a base illustration/border from David Butler and am building up my own details and additions.  I'm still astonished at how quickly things carve.

Here is the background carved...about 30" square and 1" thick

Next up is some fun detail carved in 1/8" pvc.  It's not glued down yet..just placed to show it.  It will be pre-painted before assembly.

Next up is some of the lettering for the "Steam Punk Ale".  There is a plaque below that will say "Rise Above It All".  Below that will be a semi-3-Dimensional Person in a steampunk jetpack holding a brew while he flies....this will be sculpted.

I'll work on the sculpt...then begin adding greeblies and fun little narnies...A jetpack tank on either side of the sign, some dials and tubes...maybe some wiring and lighting.  It's going to be fun!  I can't wait to get some rivets and rust on this one.  It's a much needed warm up....

Go Outside and DO something...

My mother and stepfather used to say this a great deal when I was younger: "Go outside and DO something...you spend too much time reading and doing Star Trek stuff".  I suppose it was understandable.  My friends and I were into this up and coming thing called home computers and if we weren't playing on a TRS 80 or Commodore Vic 20 (my brother Mr. Fancypants had a Commodore 64) we were digging through Dungeons and Dragons books trying to figure out how we were going to make it through the next game.  We did go out sometimes...to the arcade.  Video games back then were in a cabinet, not a console and quarters were in high demand.  It was the Geek Dark Ages. 
One of my friends and I decided that Dungeons and Dragons was cool, but making a sci-fi movie would be more fun.  Soon we were carting home weird junk and piecing together a "bridge".  Most of the credit belongs to a guy named Mark Smart (fortunately he is really really smart or the name might have been a burden).  We spent hours either in his basement or eventually in my upstairs spare room risking fire from the many many christmas lights and light bulbs lighting up our bridge and heating up the room.

Most of you probably won't recognize it, but those top panels are 4 pieces from an abandoned "LEGS" pantyhose display.  There were also lots of fake buttons you could buy in bulk from Radio Shack back in the day (when Radio Shack was something other than phones and overpriced junk).

I helped mostly with the navigation and helm console: It had everything from light bright pegs (some of you are thinking 'what is a light bright peg?') to milk carton caps.  Duct Tape brought it all together.

If you're going to do a sci-fi film, you gotta have a spaceship, right?

This construction paper and toothpick shapeship was pretty awesome, really.  It's a shame the film never really came together.  We did have some fun, though!
Why we didn't date more, I'll never understand...sci-fi, computers, model ships...we were HOT. No-seriously, those lights brought the temperature up by 20-30 degrees. We were really hot.

So jumping forward from the 80's to the late 90's, I'd finally grown up.  What was I doing at night?  Working on a model of the bridge, of course.  It was scaled to go with some 9" action figures...ok ok ok..they were dolls. I had hoped to do a stop action film and the bridge was going to be the first set.  I did, in fact, do a small film for a sales meeting at work, but it is long gone.

The bridge model was about 6' in diameter and eventually had to be taken apart and it was ruined in storage (much like the earlier bridge set).

So, now it's 2012 and things are VERY different.  I work with a computer most days, and build crazy fun sci-fi and steampunk creations whenever possible.  This week I'm prepping for a large sign mural..almost 36 feet long.  After that, I have a stop motion idea that I've been toying around with for a long, long time...

CarveWright Designer and Shopbot...yup.

I've been wondering about this since the good people over at LHR technologies created the 3d file importer for Designer (their application for the CarveWright).  Wouldn't it be cool if you could create a file in Designer and then export the .stl file?!!! (a 3D format).  Turns out that the answer is now YES!   Why, you ask?  Well, I find the Designer application to be about as easy as falling off a log to use.  It's simple, you get what you see and it does a fantastic job of turning greyscale images into relief. 
With the recent addition of 3D tools available for Designer, I thought it was high time to give it a whirl.

I began with a pet project.  Some movie/tv folks are putting together a kickstart project called "Space Command". It's retro-science fiction. Think 1950's rockets done with modern technology.  I was immediately drawn to it.  Many Trek veterans are involved and they've raised a fair amount of money but can use more.  I recently saw the logo work that Michael Okuda had created for it, and thought it would lend itself easily to a carve.  Let's start in CarveWright and end on Shopbot!

Here is the artwork created by Mr. Okuda:

Here it is imported into CarveWright Designer:

Now you can see it in 3d in Designer:

Now we can export it to an .stl file:

So far so good!
Now I can import it into almost any application that can run an .stl file on the shopbot. From cheap to expensive, almost all will get it done.

I decided that I'd like to round the edges off a bit...lots of curves in 1950 sci-fi....so I used a smoothing tool on it.

Loaded up some Azek pvc on the shopbot and she began to carve!

Soon I'll be trimming it and painting it.  An 18" diameter piece from a CarveWright Designer file (the CarveWright has a 14" limit on a single width board).  I'm thrilled with the quality of the file and the carve.  I think this piece will bring a few dollars for a great project!  I'll show finish work soon and tell you how you might be able to get it!

Gettin' Dimensional

The last couple of months have been full of murals and conferences and meets. Painting outdoors is a blast, but the whole time I've been thinking about carving dimensional pieces in the back of my mind.  I have projects I need to complete and I'd like to be fully up to speed on the shopbot as soon as is possible.  This weekend, I decided it was time to work out the method for importing 3d models.  I can build things in the software for carving, but I thought it would be great to be able to build a 3d model and then import it and carve it.
Just to get the method figured out, I found a fun but inaccurate model of one of my favorite movie models...the Nautilus from 20,000 leagues.  I spent some time working out how to slice it, size it and generate the toolpaths.  I set the machine to carving and went about my business.
Success!

This was carved in some 1 1/2" HDU in about 2 1/2 hours.  I hadn't really expected it to go so well on the first shot, but I was pleased that it did!

I hate to waste things, and while this model is not accurate, I couldn't resist putting a little primer and paint on it.  I've been playing with primer textures ever since I took Dan's class and this seemed like a good place to try out something different. The boat is underwater and I thought I'd put a swirly texture around it.  It reminds me of an old technique used on gold leaf to add a circular pattern...I thought it would be cool to translate it to primer texture!

Now it's time to move to larger models and bigger carves...the fun is on now!

CarveWright conference!

I have had the very good fortune to speak at the first two conferences held by the makers of the CarveWright cnc machine.  I share some of the methods I've developed and talk about everything from robots to paint.  I always make sure there aren't any objects for them to throw before I begin.  They provided generous applause, which may be nothing more than thanks that my awful jokes are over.Here is just a sample set of pictures of the amazing work being done with this little machine:

This year was a particular treat.  I finally had the opportunity to meet another user named Brandon MacDougall in person.  He created the guitar and mandolin seen above.  He uses the CarveWright to create many of the pieces and turn his 3D models of instruments into reality.  You can see much more of his work at www.liquidviolins.com .  It also turns out that he worked heavily on some 3D work on shows like Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise.

I enjoyed talking with him and found out both the awesome and not quite so awesome aspects of the world behind the tv screen.  His passion for it is obvious and I suspect we'll see more of that kind of work from him in the future.  Our hosts might not have enjoyed the extended "video toaster" and "lightwave" discussion as much as I did, but they were gracious.  The owner of CarveWright and his wife have a lovely home and have been kind enough to let me rest my head there both years.

New software for the CarveWright was released and I finally had a chance to really sit down and play with it.  There are 2D vector tools and 3D tools that blast the door wide open to what can be done.  It was especially exciting for me, as all of this work can be used on the CarveWright and exported as .stl for the ShopBot!  I have a feeling you'll be able to buy the Designer application as a stand-alone very soon...I believe there is a place in every shop with a large cnc machine for the CarveWright. It can be used to prototype and build pieces more quickly than a large machine in certain cases.  Now a file can be generated and scaled up for the larger machine. Wow!

Check it out at:  http://www.carvewright.com/2010CWweb/newsletter/4thofjuly/4thofJulySale12.htm

Now it's time to clean up the shop and get back at it.  Big things looming. Can't wait to start!