Story goes like this. A guy I work with likes a particular rap song that repeats the word “panda” over and over in it. It’s pretty much the only word you can understand through the whole song and because it’s such a bad song, we blast it in the shop (or used to) for everyone to get annoyed with. So a few months ago I found the best image I could of a rapping panda and taped it to his tool box. After that, his nickname at the shop became panda. Even the office lady calls him that.
Then along came the Xcarve, a new computer, a bunch of new programs (including a full Adobe suit). So I made several panels for a few aircraft (which i’ll be posting soon) out of .09" aluminum and cast acrylic and had a few scraps laying around I didn’t want to waste them. So… What can I make using a method of machining I haven’t done yet??? I happen to glance at my buddies tool box and walla… I made an aluminum .09" Rick Ross Panda circle thing using pocketing LOL… I’ve never used the pocket function and don’t really see the need yet for doing it on aircraft related projects.
So I grabbed the image from google, put it in Adobe illustrator to cut it up, then dropped it into Aspire. Everything went smooth! Used a dull bit and a warped piece of metal (didn’t want to use the good stuff on a dumb project), but i’m pretty happy with it. It’s not 100% spot on, but for a quick run through I think it turned out pretty awesome. I didn’t have the correct bits to make some of the small pieces so I used a dremel bit that sorta worked.
Aside from what the project actually is, i’m learning how to use my Xcarve and I love it more and more every time I use it! It does exactly what I thought it would do and i’m learning from all of my mistakes so each time I use it, I make better, faster, and cleaner cuts. Big thanks to this forum, the search tool, and Inventables for everything I’ve been able to accomplish so far with this thing.
