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Summary of the CNC sign project
The CNC project was an independent project. We all got do choose our own designs we wanted to do. I chose to do a surf board to represent my Hawaiian name Kanoelani. There was many steps we had to go through so I will show them to you below!
Materials
CNC
Fusion 360
Adobe Illustrator
Computer
Sand paper
Acrylic paint
Creating
This is what I started with, I had to trace a surfboard to get the shape. I traced the surfboard with the curvature tool. I then added text with the text box tool to type my name out. I had to adjust the size of my writing to get it fully wrapped around the surfboard. I also had to adjust the wording and place it more left of the surfboard so it wouldn't cut off my words. I chose to do this design because my name is Hawaiian so I wanted to do something that would have to do with the beach and Hawaii. After a few tries of tracing and making it perfect I then had to tranfer it to Adobe Illustrator to making it come alive!
Once I put it in Adobe Illustrator this is what it looked like. The next step I had to do was extrude it. This tool was to make it 3D. In order for the CNC to know exactly what we wanted and how we wanted it we had to follow tool paths to allow us to be able to cut out on the CNC. I measured my work to see how big of a peice of wood I would need for my sign. It came out as 8x15. I cut that out and was now onto the CNC.
CNC Process
After we were all finished on Adobe Illustrator we had to transfer our work to the CNC. I did this by emailing the workshops computer my exact copy and modifications. Once the computer got the file, we had to download the file. To your left is what it looked like on the computer screen once it was all downloaded. To make sure that the wood panel wouldn't move while it was getting cut, I had to tape one side of the wooden board and super glue it to the tape I put on the table. I made sure that the super glue was only on the taped part on the table or else I wouldn't be able to get it off so easily.
This is a picture of my sign while being cut out. As you can see it was taped down really securely. It is pretty cool to see this in action! The second picture is my sign all cut out. I had to sand it with sand paper to get all the rough edges to look nicer. It turned out very good.
Finishing touches
The last thing I had to do for my sign was to paint it and make it look pretty. I mixed a darker pink and white acrylic paint to create this bubble pink color. I painted the outside of the surfboard the light pink. I decided if I painted the whole surfboard pink it wouldn't make it that special. So i decided to make the middle strip white. All the other part were pink inlcuding the letters. I also painted on little flowers. I really liked how it made it look very neat and cute.
End product
Reflection
Overall this was a really fun project and I really enjoyed it. I loved how we got to pick our own projects and go our own ways. This turned out really well. One of my successes was that I designed it really well in Fusion 360. It was exactly what I wanted and when I transferred it to Adobe Illustrator I put it in 3D and immediately loved the results. One of my challenges was making the tool paths. There was a lot of steps and it just became complicated to fidn everything i need to apply. Overall I loved this project and the process was fun!
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