Week 6 - Computer Controlled Machining

For this weeks assignment I've designed a desk in Autocad. The desk will be an oval shape and should be able to be milled out of one piece of 4'x8' material. The theme behind the actual design is utility and portability. The desk has a comfortable shape and tries to not have any obstructions as far as table legs are concerned, so any sort of rolling desk chair is not an issue.

Another facet I wanted to add to the project is being portable and possibly easy to store. To accomplish this I've designed the desk legs to be able to be folded in two dimensions. The back double leg mount will fold in and the side legs will then fold on top of the double. With the hand grip milled into the actual table top (given the material I use) the desk should be able to be semi-portable, or at least very storable.

We are not able to actually mill our designs out this week so I made a prototype of the desk on the laser cutter. It seems that the side legs for the desk are not completely compatible with my hinge idea. I will make an adjustment to the file in preparation for the actual cut on the ShopBot at Keeseh studios.

Our labspace AS220 recently acquired a ShopBot of our very own. I was able to cut my desk file out on the router, and it did a great job. Aside from some minor bowing of the material, I was able to cut all three of my tool paths with extreme accuracy.

Toolpaths:

1) Pocket tool path - for screw recesses

2) Drill hole tool path - plunge 1/4" drilling

3) Profile cutting - the outside of every shape