Henry’s first day off school (for the summer) was today. That, of course, meant he was eager to come to work. We made some significant progress on his parade float in the first hour. Then he and I went for a leisurely lunch at the local deli. After lunch, we went back to the shop. Henry, being seven years old and with a rather short attention span, was ready for a new adventure. He wandered over to the Hazelnut Inn to watch the crew work. They were sculpting the last of the concrete in the Copper Crown garden. Henry pitched right in, of course. Matt or his dad would do a quick layout of a crack in the plaster, and then Henry would finish the carving and provide some personal embellishments. The skilled team (including Henry) managed to polish off the sculpting. Next week they will begin the painting. Stay tuned…
2nd to last day of sculpting
The crew ignored today's forecast of rain showers and pressed on with the sculpted concrete in the Copper Crown’s garden. They got lucky. The tarps were handy but unnecessary because the rain held off until this evening. The sculpting crew made great progress. Tomorrow, the weatherman is again calling for rain. If he’s wrong, the sculpting will be complete. If not, we’ll push that job to next week. The first load of soil for the gardens is ready just outside the gate.
Custom solutions
Traditionally, the limiting factor in what we can build are the tools that allow us to accomplish what we imagine. With the right partners this is no longer the case. I recently spoke to our good friends at XEdgetools.com and they asked me what kind of projects we were working on and how could they help. The tool I was looking for did not yet exist but they immediately said they would be happy to create some prototypes for me to try.
We received one of the first long cutting edge tapered 1/8 inch ball nose bits they manufactured a few years ago. We use it almost exclusively on our routing projects and it has been going strong since then. Even after years of heavy use it is still perfectly sharp. That super long cutting edge brought down our routing time on our projects immensely and it changed the way we built our files.
The tools I was seeking this time were smaller versions of that same tool. Today I received a package via courior that contained 3/32” and 1/16” bits each sporting 2 1/2” of cutting edge. That will allow us to achieve amazing definition and detail without the limitations of a traditional small diameter bit.
I have just the projects to test drive this tool. The Sign Invitational pieces demand this kind of precision and in the next few days our ShopSabre CNC is going to be hard at it. Stay tuned…
