Nova Labs recently bought a ShopSabre RC-4 CNC router for the wood shop. A few copies of VCarve are on computers at the makerspace, allowing members to setup their tool path.

Some of the regulars on Wednesday night decided to do a “one-night-build,” or a project we could start and finish in an evening. I started thinking of ideas that we could do on the new tool (mostly so I could learn to use it).

We landed on building some stools downloaded from the open source furniture website OpenDesk. Most designs on the site are setup for 4×8′ sheets of material but we found the Johann Stool from Johann Aussage would fit easily on our half sheets of plywood.

Adobe Illustrator was used to modify the designs for the actual thickness of the plywood we bought, and to eliminate some decoration.

Starting to work through the setup in VCarve.

After those design considerations were fixed, we used VCarve to setup the tool path. They have a a makerspace license allowing for people to use the software at home in basically a trial mode, but save the G-code from the properly licensed software at the makerspace.

3D representation of the toolpath from VCarve

A .25″ end mill was used for everything, including the holes for pins during assembly.

Part-way through cutting the first stool from the 3/4″ plywood.

Part-way through cutting the first stool from the 3/3″ plywood.

Final cleanup was done with a 1/8″ roundover router bit on the regular router table. The laser cutter was used to engrave the NovaLabs logo on the top of the seat, and a credit to the designer was etched (vector cutting at fast speed/low power) onto the bottom.

Johann Stool partially assembled (using nails instead of 1/4″ dowels to hold the sides on).

Top and bottom of the finished Johann Stools.

Nova Labs logo laser engraved on the stool tops.

Vector etching (light cut) on the bottom of the stools with a shout-out to the designer.

Finished and assembled Johann Stools with Nova Labs logo.