mtylerfl
12-01-2011, 09:04 AM
Hello,
A recent thread prompted me to share with you a couple quick tips regarding easy sled making and gathering "supplies" from the "waste" of previous projects that you might find handy.
As you know, I design the monthly projects for CarveWright (and also for Vectric). For the CarveWright projects, I always specify a "plain" board with an extra 3½" at each end of the board for the purpose of keeping the board captive under the rollers during the project run. This is the simplest way of assuring a CW user (new or experienced) to be successful from the get-go with any project released publicly.
However, what most folks don't know is that I "salvage" the tails and "waste" boards from some of those prototype runs when I anticipate making my own additional (same) projects for gifts, etc. You may want to do the same thing to build up your sled material supply. Here's what I do...
1) After the initial project run and photo-documentation is done for the project, I cut off a teeny tad more than 3½" from each end of the waste board. If I anticipate I am going to carve additional projects using a carrier-board sled after the prototype is finished, I cut my project boards about a half inch longer than the specs in the instructions so I'm sure to get a yield of at least 3½"-long tail material. (If I'm pretty sure I won't be making another for myself, then my boards are cut to spec or only slightly longer than the spec. by about 1/8")
2) If the project uses more than one board, I will usually keep that second board intact as this can become useful as a sled "carrier" board for the current or some future project. Over time, I end up with several "intact" waste boards and "tails" of various widths and lengths on-hand until my next "spring-cleaning" of the piles of wood!
3) When ready to run a sled/carrier board project, I go to the pile and pick out suitably sized items and cut them to size, depending on the project. All I do is glue (with superglue and/or Tightbond) the tails on top of an old "intact" waste board from a previous project and trim the bottom carrier to size, if necessary. Then it's just a matter of cutting the center portion board for a tight fit (the project carve area) and inserting it between the tails on top of the carrier. Any slight gaps are simply covered with blue painter's tape. Sometimes I do need to make some minor alterations to the original MPC to accomodate the carrier/sled size if necessary.
This is a quick and easy way to accumulate sled/carrier supplies if you do some or most of your projects on "plain" boards. Equally easy is to just glue the tails on the ends of the carrier and away you go. I have built and used "standard" enclosed sleds, but I get lazy and usually don't bother if a simple carrier board will do the job.
A heads up - Ken Johnson (DocWheeler) wrote another excellent article about sleds and jigs with input from Chris Rawls on some very specific details about how the software is programmed to behave with sleds/carriers/jigs. It's a great article and will dispel a few common myths regarding the use of sleds in the CarveWright. He gave me the final draft of that article back in July of this year. I've been putting it off because I told him I wanted to do a video version of his tutorial and haven't been able to set aside the time to go into production on it! However, in light of some recent events, I am becoming quite motivated to "make the time"! I wish I could tell you ALL of what goes on behind the scenes - you have no idea how much effort goes into trying to help CW Users be successful!
I've shared a few photos below (I took this morning). I seldom photo-document my own personal projects as I can move about five times faster without having to fool with that. With the upcoming sled article, the plan is to do video, but I may supplement that with some stills and maybe even printed info too.
A recent thread prompted me to share with you a couple quick tips regarding easy sled making and gathering "supplies" from the "waste" of previous projects that you might find handy.
As you know, I design the monthly projects for CarveWright (and also for Vectric). For the CarveWright projects, I always specify a "plain" board with an extra 3½" at each end of the board for the purpose of keeping the board captive under the rollers during the project run. This is the simplest way of assuring a CW user (new or experienced) to be successful from the get-go with any project released publicly.
However, what most folks don't know is that I "salvage" the tails and "waste" boards from some of those prototype runs when I anticipate making my own additional (same) projects for gifts, etc. You may want to do the same thing to build up your sled material supply. Here's what I do...
1) After the initial project run and photo-documentation is done for the project, I cut off a teeny tad more than 3½" from each end of the waste board. If I anticipate I am going to carve additional projects using a carrier-board sled after the prototype is finished, I cut my project boards about a half inch longer than the specs in the instructions so I'm sure to get a yield of at least 3½"-long tail material. (If I'm pretty sure I won't be making another for myself, then my boards are cut to spec or only slightly longer than the spec. by about 1/8")
2) If the project uses more than one board, I will usually keep that second board intact as this can become useful as a sled "carrier" board for the current or some future project. Over time, I end up with several "intact" waste boards and "tails" of various widths and lengths on-hand until my next "spring-cleaning" of the piles of wood!
3) When ready to run a sled/carrier board project, I go to the pile and pick out suitably sized items and cut them to size, depending on the project. All I do is glue (with superglue and/or Tightbond) the tails on top of an old "intact" waste board from a previous project and trim the bottom carrier to size, if necessary. Then it's just a matter of cutting the center portion board for a tight fit (the project carve area) and inserting it between the tails on top of the carrier. Any slight gaps are simply covered with blue painter's tape. Sometimes I do need to make some minor alterations to the original MPC to accomodate the carrier/sled size if necessary.
This is a quick and easy way to accumulate sled/carrier supplies if you do some or most of your projects on "plain" boards. Equally easy is to just glue the tails on the ends of the carrier and away you go. I have built and used "standard" enclosed sleds, but I get lazy and usually don't bother if a simple carrier board will do the job.
A heads up - Ken Johnson (DocWheeler) wrote another excellent article about sleds and jigs with input from Chris Rawls on some very specific details about how the software is programmed to behave with sleds/carriers/jigs. It's a great article and will dispel a few common myths regarding the use of sleds in the CarveWright. He gave me the final draft of that article back in July of this year. I've been putting it off because I told him I wanted to do a video version of his tutorial and haven't been able to set aside the time to go into production on it! However, in light of some recent events, I am becoming quite motivated to "make the time"! I wish I could tell you ALL of what goes on behind the scenes - you have no idea how much effort goes into trying to help CW Users be successful!
I've shared a few photos below (I took this morning). I seldom photo-document my own personal projects as I can move about five times faster without having to fool with that. With the upcoming sled article, the plan is to do video, but I may supplement that with some stills and maybe even printed info too.