When I lent my services to a collegue who was working on a film about 12 years ago, I was introduced to the world of cnc. I remember watching this huge machining centre milling out a slab of mdf and turning it into a fantastic set of gears. I knew that it would have taken me hours to achieve the same thing with traditional power tools. I decided then that I would invest in a cnc router for my own business Oxenham Design. At that time I could turn on a computer, but even to check email seemed like a crazy set of operations. I persevered and learned every piece of relevant software I could get my hands on. I am now fortunate enough to be using Vectric's ASPIRE software, and Techno cnc routers, which has helped us to create some amazing projects, both in part, or in full. I thought that this blog would be a great place to share "behind the scenes" adventures with the software, materials and equipment we use, as well as the projects we build.

Friday 10 October 2014

I Like Big Nuts and I Cannot Lie, You Other Brothers Can't Deny......

A big part of our work is just at the computer end of things. Either 2d graphics, 3d modelling, and sometimes product and set rendering.
The last job was for a friend and college of mine. Larry Ryan is a guy I met a few years ago on a job, and we seem to have just hit it off! His company does mostly extra large styrofoam stuff. If I need a 2 part hardcoat sprayed, or the project is too big for our equipment, Larry is who I call. He actually cut our oversized Cadbury egg last year because of our time constraints!

Due to his time constraints this time, and overflow of work, he asked if I could model a 3-dimensional peanut, that would eventually become a set of display shelves for some kind of promotion. All I have to do is model, and slice it, then upload the files. He'll cut it on his oversized 4 axis cnc router and hotwire cutter.

 The order of the day was to get the base shape of the peanut modeled. This was done in Hexagon as a simple sub-d surface. I pondered how to build this as all a single mesh model, but in the end decided to make it as 2 separate meshes. And as a cnc router doesn't care if a mesh is watertight, it made modeling this way a little easier!
Once the base shape had been created, I used a few online reference images to tackle the raised texture portions of the shell. I decided to model this a little more stylized than a real peanut. There will certainly be no mistaking exactly what it is from a distance!
I rendered out the two meshes, and sent the drawing for approval. Everyone seemed quite happy with it, so the next step was to prep the model for fabrication.
8)
JWO



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