I’d like to make wooden spoons for Christmas gifts but not sure how to design the rounded “scoops” in the body of the spoon itself. I’ve used easel for a few projects and also purchased Vcarve Pro that I have also used. However, I’m not seeing how to use either of these for a 3D shape such as a spoon bowl or eventually a hollowed out dining room chair seat. Is this something that can be done with the software I have or am I going to have to move to a full 3D Cad solution? I’ve signed up with AutoCad, but really struggle with it.
Looking for suggestions on how others would attack this type of project.
Thanks!
Rick
The most straight-forward way to do this would be to use an engraving program, draw up a pixel image which does depth maps for both sides of the spoon and cut that.
Best thing, w/ the most control would be a full 3D CAD program.
free/opensource: http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/CAD#3D
Commercial: Shapeoko CNC Router, Rigid, Accurate, Reliable, and Affordable
It’s unfortunate that there aren’t any straight-forward options for taking advantage of changing the plane for G2/3 arcs.
I saw a tutorial for vcarve pro on Design and Make’s website. (sorry I don’t remember which one - it had to do with family crests I think) Where they demoed a vcarve feature. You can distort a element along another curve. So in theory you should be able to draw a ellipse in vcarve then a arch and have the ellipse follow the arch to make a bowl. If that makes sense. I wish I could remember the name of the function.
Alternatively you could use a simple / free 3D modeling program (like TinkerCad) to make a basic elliptical shaped stl file and import that to vcarve and try subtracting it from the spoon. (Note vcarve pro will only let you have one svg file import per project.)
VCarve has clip art you can download that includes “Domes and Dishes”. I’m thinking you could use a ‘dish’ for the bowl of the spoon and a dome for the back side. The clip art is available on Vectric’s support site.
Bill,
Thanks for this tip. I played around with it for some time yesterday before finally figuring out how to get any sort of tool path. I was able to get a dome, that could possibly work for the back of the spoon. I haven’t figured out how to turn the dome into a hollowed shape but I will keep working on it. The effort was not in vain though. I wasn’t even aware of this capability so I will certainly put it to use in other projects, maybe not just the spoons.
For spoons, I may just have to make a bunch of concentric circles or ovals and carve each of them deeper and deeper. The final center one could be a pocket milling, and the others simply mill the profile. If I had the circles each about 1mm smaller in radius and mill with a ball mill, it probably wouldn’t be too bad to sand everything smooth. This sure seems like it could be a good add on tool for Easel. I may have to dig into what it takes to create a gadget.
Unfortunately, none of these seem like they will work for chair seats, as those aren’t a simple circular shape, so sounds I’m going to have to get fully into 3D Cad…
–Rick
