Page 9 - CNC Robotics

Design

Why Build My Own

I first th ought about adding a CNC router to my too l collection
after fi nishing a kitchen cabinet renovation in my home. I refaced
the cabinets and bui lt 26 new doors. during which I discovered
that door building can become monotonou s at best. As always
happens when yo u tell or show yo ur fri ends and fam ily what yo u
have done, someone w ill have a sim ilar project and enlist yo ur
help. Tha t someone was my frie nd Geoff S. He wanted to do the
same thing to his kitchen-reface and install new cabinet doors. I
agreed to help him and he decided on a style of door that can be
made from one piece of material cut to size and routed to create
th e look he wanted . Of cou rse the prospect of building a whole Jot
of doors and making templates to faci litate the routing was n't too
thrilling. That's w hen I thought a small CNC machine wo uld come
in handy. All th e repeti tive rou ting could be asslgned to the CNC
machine and the doors would more closely resemble each other
once human error had been removed from the equation. Now the
project didn't seem too bad at all!
I started to look for an affordable machine to do the job, After
searching the Intern et, I was shocked to find how much the asking
price is for a CNC mach ine. I did find a cou ple that were under

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