piggy coffee table - cnc router

As a furniture designer, I like to be surrounded by beautiful furniture.
When I joined instructures as an artist at my residence at Pier 9, we recently moved to a new office space with no \"rest\" space other than the sofa.
We really needed a coffee table in front of us, so I decided to design and make one for our new lounge.
Concept: I would like to make a table similar to an animal, in which case it is a pig.
I don\'t want to create a flat surface on the top, because every 2 inch or so passing through the plywood gives me enough space to place plates, cups or whatever you want.
The overall result was a very strong table.
I hope you can stick to it and do it yourself!
Material: Important: measure the thickness of plywood!
I bought black melamine plywood at 0. 75” thick (19. 05 mm)
But as you can see from the pictures, it was 20 years old. 16 mm thick.
This is very important because the design has locking parts and we need to adapt to thicker materials.
I designed the table with Rhino because I was very happy with using the software.
However, I was told that 123D has an amazing feature that would be a very simple process for me and I would like to keep it in future projects.
My biggest design limitation is how long the table will be due to the size of the Shopbot workspace: 4\'x2 \'.
I drew an ellipse in my favorite shape and then made an ellipse to get a 3D view.
Then I decided the grid I was going to do (
Watch from top).
With this in mind, I drew some lines for each surface.
You can download the Rhino file, STL version and 3d max to play and edit the design.
Once I have all the tablets, I arrange them on a 4\'x 2\' sheet.
Download the illustrator or Autocad file you need to create the toolpath.
Files included: create a new file.
Now in the job settings: we will create a file with a material size of 4\'x2\' x 1/4 (
Or how thick your real material is).
Top is zero.
The import vector file, the vector will appear on the worksheet.
Sometimes your vector may be outside of the worksheet, so it needs to be scaled down.
Another thing you need to do is add an open vector under the section \"edit vector.
Control A will select all vectors and click the connect button.
Click the join button again.
If you need to correct or move some objects around the worksheet now, it\'s time to do so.
You may need to do this in order to optimize the material. Control + A (select all)
, Click the right tab: toolpath (
Lock it so you can open it in the next session).
The 3rd icon is used for contour cutting and a fill table with options will be displayed.
The first set of values will determine the depth to be cut.
Since we Zero at the top of the surface, our starting depth will be zero.
You want to cut all the material and a little sacrifice plate, so add a little depth to your cut depth (C).
Now you need to select the cutter bit to cut.
Click select and use 1/4 end milling as we are cutting the part mark on the machine vector: Outside/right side.
Add the ramp to the toolpath, smooth, pick distance (4-
6 inch good working).
Save the toolpath: you will be prompted \"warning-
The tool will cut the material \", but you already know because you did it on purpose when you chose to cut the depth.
After you have successfully created the toolpath, you will see the preview.
Once you\'re happy with what you see, click close.
Make sure to select Profile1 and click save toolpath, which will have extended SBP.
Note on creating a label: the label is part of the material and it will not be cut in order to maintain the position of the part.
I don\'t want to do a lot of post work because I have a lot of parts to cut
I decided not to do the labeling work.
If you have a workbench with a vacuum then this is great because you don\'t need the label anyway.
Now you are ready to cut the pieces for your table.
Put your 4\' x 2\' plywood on the workbench of the Shopbot.
Get the sheets to the table with screws.
Open the Shopbot and computer.
Open the Shopbot manager.
Put the inch vertical mill on Collet and you can zero the machine to zero on the 3 axis.
Use the proxy switch to zero the x and y axes.
Now use the Z-plate to zero the Z-axis of the machine.
Z-plate zero Z-axis: Open the toolpath file and click start.
You will be prompted for a warning message to start the router/spindle.
Before clicking OK on the warning message, make sure you actually start the spindle.
Shopbot will now start cutting your material.
This is the simple and interesting part.
You sit next to the router and watch how the machine cuts all your parts.
Since I\'m using an inch vertical mill, it goes through 3 times before it actually releases each part.
Keep in mind that we didn\'t add tags, so if your work is really close, it might be a good thing to get your recently cut work out of the table.
I do this easily without downtime.
Once the work is done, the spindle will be turned off and you can unscrew the material from the workbench.
For a 4\'x 2\' coffee table, 4 is required, so continue to repeat the process for each coffee table now.
I ran out of black melamine, so I used white melamine from one of the other items.
Pay attention to some scratches: I ordered Black melamine and it was in very bad shape.
It has quite a scratch (shown on photo).
After I cut all the parts, I observed that some parts were not smooth on several edges.
This may be because my material may not be completely flat on the workbench.
I went to get a document and sandpaper and smooth the edges off.
If you have a track Sander, give you more power!
We have a bunch of parts and it\'s a good idea to sort them out before we start assembling the tables.
Apart from 1 middle part, we should have 2 each.
Looks good!
Use the middle part (
The only cut without repetition)
Seize and mark the center (
I use blue tape).
Now grab the biggest \"ribs\" and put them on both sides.
Put some glue before sliding the ribs to the main body.
Keep doing the same with smaller ribs etc until you get to the legs.
You may be able to do this intuitively, but as the photos show, continue to glue and slide the pieces.
Your new piggy coffee table is finished.