I’ve been fascinated with the world of CNC and always hoped to be working with CNC at a hobby level for a while and especially having seen a Haas machine working high precision parts. Didn’t quite have the Haas type budget so went for a machine – Workbee – by Ooznest. The choice was based on the quality of the kit, UK based and an excellent reputation for customer service. You don’t get a ready built machine but two boxes each full of boxes – its then a case of following the instructions and building and commissioning the beast.
It’s great fun building up the individual components, mounting parts on the axis beams and bolting the whole thing together. Valuable time is then spent making sure the frame is level, the axis are squared and stepper motors calibrated.
The whole process is a rewarding and amazing way of understanding how the machine works.
Then it comes to cutting your first piece – and this is when the learning really starts. These are the bits not covered in the instruction guide such as best ways of holding work pieces, feed rates, dust control, etc. but there are so many good forums around for useful advice.
There are few example of things I’ve done recently and I’ll do my best to post about other ‘creations’ and provide info on feed rates and the like. I made a Christmas tree dish a while ago that was a really useful learning experience – you can find it here.
Every now and then I’ll put some piece on to my Etsy shop – you can find it here: