First carve and a success,

[GLN]

I started looking at these machines about two years ago and after talking to owners and hearing of all the machine issues I backed off. About six months ago I found this forum and started lurking and reading all the back posts and digesting information. Thank you one and all, and also fwharris who has sent me a lot of great info to read and help me get started. Three weeks ago I went to Nebraska and Colorado to visit family. I found a CompuCarve on Craigs list for sale in Omaha that the guy had bought almost two years ago, but with his schedule never opened the box. I was going to be driving thru Omaha on my way west and contacted the gentleman and low balled his price. He took it. From my research hear I knew I needed a rock chuck before I even turned it on and also a dust collection system. I contacted Floyd and arranged to pick one of his extracters up at his house on my way thru his home town which just happened to be right on the way to my sisters house. Floyd and his lovely wife are two of the nicest people I have met, and he has some GREAT carvings he showed me and a lot of tips on the machine. I got back from vacation last Sat. and installed the dust collecter to a small 1 hp 950 cfm unit from Harbor Freight and the "rock" arrived yesterday. Because I had watched the video and read all the great info here the change out was a 10 minute easy go. I took the flex shaft out and greased with lithium grease and reinstalled this morning. Yesterday I bought a couple patterns from CW and downloaded today and here is a picture of my first carve. No bad vibrations, flex shaft stayed just barely warm, the dust collector made more noise than the machine and cleanup was a breeze as the fwharris dust nozzle took about 95 % of the dust out of the machine. You guys rock, with out you I would not have ever known about the great PREVENTATIVE fixes for the machine. Now I gotta go start sanding. Thanks again. Gary

[SteveEJ]

Gary,
Nice work and good job learning up front! Welcome to the Forums!

Now: Back to Carvin' :)

[jjack9485]

Gary,

Welcome to the forum, its the place to be,especially if you encounter any problems, you post a problem and you will be bombarded with solutions.
Nice job on the Wilderness clock, one of my favorites.

Jack

[fwharris]

Gary,

The Eagle clock looks awesome for the first carve!! Great job!!!

Thanks for the very kind words. The wife and I really enjoyed the short visit we had. Both of you were a pleasure to talk with. Wish we could have spent a little more time together but heck now I know a good place to go do some awesome fishing..

Just a heads up on the flex shaft, get some CraneCam lube soon!!!

Happy carving!!! and thanks again!!!



Glad to see you made it back home

[dbfletcher]

I started looking at these machines about two years ago and after talking to owners and hearing of all the machine issues I backed off. About six months ago I found this forum and started lurking and reading all the back posts and digesting information. Thank you one and all, and also fwharris who has sent me a lot of great info to read and help me get started. Three weeks ago I went to Nebraska and Colorado to visit family. I found a CompuCarve on Craigs list for sale in Omaha that the guy had bought almost two years ago, but with his schedule never opened the box. I was going to be driving thru Omaha on my way west and contacted the gentleman and low balled his price. He took it. From my research hear I knew I needed a rock chuck before I even turned it on and also a dust collection system. I contacted Floyd and arranged to pick one of his extracters up at his house on my way thru his home town which just happened to be right on the way to my sisters house. Floyd and his lovely wife are two of the nicest people I have met, and he has some GREAT carvings he showed me and a lot of tips on the machine. I got back from vacation last Sat. and installed the dust collecter to a small 1 hp 950 cfm unit from Harbor Freight and the "rock" arrived yesterday. Because I had watched the video and read all the great info here the change out was a 10 minute easy go. I took the flex shaft out and greased with lithium grease and reinstalled this morning. Yesterday I bought a couple patterns from CW and downloaded today and here is a picture of my first carve. No bad vibrations, flex shaft stayed just barely warm, the dust collector made more noise than the machine and cleanup was a breeze as the fwharris dust nozzle took about 95 % of the dust out of the machine. You guys rock, with out you I would not have ever known about the great PREVENTATIVE fixes for the machine. Now I gotta go start sanding. Thanks again. Gary


Thats great and welcome to the forum! My only comment would be you said you used lithium grease for the flex shaft. LHR no loger reccomends lithium on the flex. You need a moly lube... I've been using Liquid Wrench Industrial Chain lube with Moly with great success. Howerver, I never managed to find it locally and had to order mine from the internet. I'll be looking forward to seeing your future projects.

Thanks,

Doug Fletcher