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First steps
The idea for this project was to make picture frames out of Scrapwood! This meant our first steps would be measuring and spray painting before we got into the digital stuff. My first frame was 11" x 6.5" in size and I elected to spray paint it dark red. This would be the first of two picture frames, and more of a "rough draft" as I learned my way around the CNC machine and the fusion software
Next steps: Fusion 360
Once we started in fusion 360, we had to shape the basic picture frame into one that had the same dimensions as ours. This was easily doable because of our prior measurements. After the measurements we generated new paths for the machines to allow to adjust to the real size of our frames. From here were w created a NC file from the file section and emailed it to the CNC machine email account
The final frontier: The cnc machine
Now that everything was set up, our final step was to put our stock on the CNC machine and create our frame. We loaded our NC file to the machine, set and calibrated all our axis', and hit go. Regrettably an issue calibrating the Z axis meant that our frame wasn't completely cut through leaving us with the rugh edges seeen on our frame. Along with this our tape pulled off some of the paint which contributed to the issue-ridden first draft of the frame.
Frame #2
With infinetely more experience than what I started with, I got to work on my second picture frame, working with a much larger piece of wood. I started by sanding down the wood to help out the texture, before spray painting it white. From here I repeated the same steps to put it into and bring it out of fusion 360, preparing the toolpaths and creating the NC file.
Back to the CNC machine
It was back to the CNC machine for me, and this time I strived to take extra care with my frame to avoid the rough results of frame number 1. Despite an inatial error where I quite literally glued my frame to the machine the wrong orientation, it got on and off the CNC machine much smoother and looking much better after wards.
Backers, Glass, and Pictures.
Following having an actual nice frame, the next steps that my original frame never got to see were creating glass for the frame, a picture, and a backer to hold it all together. These were all in order for my frame, so I made a sketch within Fusion. This was done by using the "Create sketch" button, and using shift select to select the inside and outside of the actual frame. I then exported the sketch as a dxf file and brought it into Illustrator to prepare for the laser cutter.
Setting up illustrator
To get the illustrator files ready for laser cutting, we had to put our sketches into illustrator and prepare them fully. This entailed taking our outside line and offsetting it by -.04 inches to make sure our glass and backer would fit. From here we moved the offset line to match the shape of the frame by rounding the edges to a radius of .25 inches. We then made it into a cut line by giving it a stroke of .001, and finally moved it into a new layer to isolate it from our reference lines.
Using the laser cutter
With our illustrator files ready, we sent out our files to the laser cutters and put the material on there. After checking everything was good on the laser cutters, we cut out our backers and crylic to the sizes we determined in illustrator.
Photos, Photos, Photos
The final step here with my frame was to print out a photo for my frame. I chose the photo below for this. To do this I duplicated my illustrator file and then pasted my photo in to guarentee the right size. I resized the photo to fit the frame, set the color of the cut line to "perfcutcontour" and sent the file to the roland printer. From here I downloaded the photo and added it to queue A, nested it with the other photos, and went to print. The photo printed and I took it off and put it in the frame
The final product
After dusting my frame up with clear coat, I put it all together. I regrettably didn't have time to put screws to keep the backer in. Overall I thought the project went really well for a first project, I throughly enjoyed it and am very happy with the frame I created. I wished I could've gone slighty faster on certain things so I could've perfected my second frame, which got its glass and backer printed but never made it to assembly. I did make a few mistakes throughout but it was very enjoyable to try to understand them and to work through them. I think that this project taught me a lot and im thrilled to get the rest of the semester to keep learning.
Finishing questions
The major steps in going from a 3d model to a cut CNC part was primarily making sure that all the tool paths in the 3d model were correct. From here it was exporting it as an NC file, emailing it to the makerspace email. Now that the file was on the CNC machine, glueing down my stock, setting the axis's on the CNC, loading the file, and hitting go.
I thought that the most complicated part of the CAD software was overwhelmingly the amount of things happening in there. There were so many options and buttons and because of the fact that it wasn't always entirely intuitive, it ended up being very complicated.
I think that one of the largest lessons i've learned from this is to make sure you know what you are doing, 100%, before you do it. Jumping ahead in things was often what came back to bite me during this assignment, so I think in the future doing more thorough checks would be useful.
To create the artwork that went into my frame, I had to refamilairze myself with illustrator, which took a little bit of time, and then also learn how to set up and use the roland printer, something compeltely foriegn to me.
I used the artwork I did because I thought it was an awesome photo from really recently, and I especially liked it because I'm wearing a helmet me and my friends painted. I thought it would look awesome in a picture frame and Im happy I used it.
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