Designs something big
This weeks assignment is to make something big, what is big? A horse! I decided to make a rocking horse. I searched the web for inspiration and found nice design that I used as a reference. I found a vector image of a rocking horse that i placed in fusion to draw after and put the correct measurements for the approximate size I wanted for the rocking horse.
Next I sketched up the the center piece of the model using the image i placed. Then I drew the legs separately and finally the “rocking part” and the saddle. I extruded everything in material thickness, made all the joints to piece the horse together. I extruded 10mm holes through the legs and the body of the horse so I can put wood pins through them so it will not fall apart. The holes will also place the parts correctly together.
The final step in Fusion was to align all the pieces and then render the rocking horse to see the final look before starting the milling process.
The plywood I'm using is 250x120 cm so I had plenty of space to work with laying out all the pices in VCarve. I made 3 passes for the milling. First the holes and a shallow cut for all the pieces to start with using a 1/8 downcut endmill. The secod was for the edges of the horse, using a 45°V-endmill. The third was to cut through all the material using a 1/8 endmill.
Milling something big
Later I want to make this rocking horse using nicer material, probably larch from a nearby forest (yes we have forests in Iceland). But for this assignment I’m using plywood, 15mm thickness. I’m milling two copies of all the parts since I’m going to glue two parts together to get the material thickness I want, 30mm.
Instead of putting many tabs to hold the pieces in place while milling, and then have to cut them off by hand I used the holes in the legs and body to fasten it down, simply by screwing small pieses of MDF on top of the pieses.
Next I glued the parts together to get the thickness I wanted, two pieces of each part of the horse.
The parts came together nicely, a little bit of sanding here and there did the job.
Finally I used two different wood colours and finished the horse with a coating od clear lacquer.
