Ain't getting any easier
by Mark JefferyThree problems with my wood-carved maps & globes side project right now:
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There is no wood to carve! Money can't buy 2" thick maple where I live... and I can't carve maps or globes without it.
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USGS changed its map data format... again! It's going to take software changes to handle the new, over-complicated format.
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My wood-carving machine is down. Several errors appear when I try to start it up. I'm working on a repair, but no luck so far.
As I've said before: physical products are hard… I'm going back to software!
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Cool product! No idea about the custom software you built for this, but I think it is really cool you built that
I noticed the line between the two wooden hemispheres in one of the pictures. I wonder if the whole thing can be made on a single piece* of wood?
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Good question. The globe could be made of one piece of wood if I had a 5-axis CNC router, which would allow the piece to be rotated to any angle to be carved away.
Unfortunately, I only have a 3-axis CNC router (the 5-axis ones are way too expensive for me!) so the carving can only be down from one direction, making splitting the globe into pieces the only way to get the 360 degree relief.
Thanks!
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I guess you can try to flip the block so it does the work on one half, then the work again on another half? I guess the challenge would be to be exact about the positioning
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That wouldn't quite work: think about the bits around the edges, where the router bit wouldn't be able to carve the mountains, because it's tangential to the surface of the globe.
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