fwharris
01-15-2008, 01:38 AM
Well I thought I would finally jump in and post some thoughts and questions about the CW.
I am 2 years retired from Kodak film plant in Colorado (32 yrs)
. NO MORE FRICKEN NIGHTS AND WEEK ENDS!!!!!
I have a novice background (jack of all and master of none) in most all of building/const. trades (thanks Dad) and probably know enough on most things to do what I want. My 2 best friends are also in the construction business (mason and carpenter).
Since the big K, I’ve remodeled the kitchen, dinning/living room, 2 decks and pergolas, 12 ft octagon planting bed and a 13 X 20 flagstone patio with a fountain.
I got my CC/CW machine in early Oct. of 2007 from Sears. It took me several weeks to make the big decision. Spent a fare amount of time on line at CW/forum and links from everyone’s posting. With the wife’s okey-dokey, (she jumped at the chance to have me find something to do) I decided to make the big jump.
$1800 dollars on the old sears card and a week later it was at the store. The same day I picked it up, Sears had it listed for $99 less. One email to Sears and I got the reduced price. Doesn’t get any better than that!
After spending several hours playing with the software, I made my first carving. It was a picture of one of my buddies sitting in a boat in Kansas holding a 5 lb catfish. If you looked at it hard enough you could make out what it was. Being a new bee I did not have the depth/height adjustments set but it was my first carving. My friend would not give it back to me after I showed it to him so I guess it wasn’t too bad after all.
Two weeks later I think I carved up just about every piece of flat pine I had in the garage.
Most were from some photos and clipart. Most were crude and only about 30 min. carvings. (just having fun making sawdust) My first real project was a sign for our coin club. We had a coin show the end of Oct. and since I was able to download the FREE patterns from www.carvebuddy.com. It was a great hit with everyone.
I will post the mpc in the gallery later. I also carved some coin pattern boards as a donation to the kid's auction at the show.
Did I say “October”? Baseball in Colorado! I also carved up a NLCS board for the Rockies and their great run. ( will post it and the patterns also). Hats off to the SOX fans out there. If we could have only won one game I had tickets to game 5.
Since then I have experienced the meltdown of the flex shaft (got a new one in 3 days), went to the woodworkers show in Denver and spent most of the time at the CW booth and took advantage of the discount and bought the bit set, scanning probe and centerline.
Enough of my rambling on. I have been amazed at the work that has been posted and has opened my eyes up to a lot of possibilities. The forum has been a helpful in the learning curve of the CW.
I am still using 1.120 and would like to know if the issue of being able to use to old patterns has been resolved? I see posts on having to convert them to mpw and import them back in, to having no problem at all. Is there a proper way or is it do it one way and if it doesn’t work do it another way?
Since I do now have a few hours (about 60) on my CW does anyone recommend any special maintenance other that the std lube, clearing the dust, calib. Offset etc.? I was thinking of possibly sending it to CW and having them do a checkup. Any thoughts on that?
I feel sorry for the few that have had problems right out of the box and have gotten the chicken with the broken egg feeling. They are missing out on a lot of fun..
I am 2 years retired from Kodak film plant in Colorado (32 yrs)
. NO MORE FRICKEN NIGHTS AND WEEK ENDS!!!!!
I have a novice background (jack of all and master of none) in most all of building/const. trades (thanks Dad) and probably know enough on most things to do what I want. My 2 best friends are also in the construction business (mason and carpenter).
Since the big K, I’ve remodeled the kitchen, dinning/living room, 2 decks and pergolas, 12 ft octagon planting bed and a 13 X 20 flagstone patio with a fountain.
I got my CC/CW machine in early Oct. of 2007 from Sears. It took me several weeks to make the big decision. Spent a fare amount of time on line at CW/forum and links from everyone’s posting. With the wife’s okey-dokey, (she jumped at the chance to have me find something to do) I decided to make the big jump.
$1800 dollars on the old sears card and a week later it was at the store. The same day I picked it up, Sears had it listed for $99 less. One email to Sears and I got the reduced price. Doesn’t get any better than that!
After spending several hours playing with the software, I made my first carving. It was a picture of one of my buddies sitting in a boat in Kansas holding a 5 lb catfish. If you looked at it hard enough you could make out what it was. Being a new bee I did not have the depth/height adjustments set but it was my first carving. My friend would not give it back to me after I showed it to him so I guess it wasn’t too bad after all.
Two weeks later I think I carved up just about every piece of flat pine I had in the garage.
Most were from some photos and clipart. Most were crude and only about 30 min. carvings. (just having fun making sawdust) My first real project was a sign for our coin club. We had a coin show the end of Oct. and since I was able to download the FREE patterns from www.carvebuddy.com. It was a great hit with everyone.
I will post the mpc in the gallery later. I also carved some coin pattern boards as a donation to the kid's auction at the show.
Did I say “October”? Baseball in Colorado! I also carved up a NLCS board for the Rockies and their great run. ( will post it and the patterns also). Hats off to the SOX fans out there. If we could have only won one game I had tickets to game 5.
Since then I have experienced the meltdown of the flex shaft (got a new one in 3 days), went to the woodworkers show in Denver and spent most of the time at the CW booth and took advantage of the discount and bought the bit set, scanning probe and centerline.
Enough of my rambling on. I have been amazed at the work that has been posted and has opened my eyes up to a lot of possibilities. The forum has been a helpful in the learning curve of the CW.
I am still using 1.120 and would like to know if the issue of being able to use to old patterns has been resolved? I see posts on having to convert them to mpw and import them back in, to having no problem at all. Is there a proper way or is it do it one way and if it doesn’t work do it another way?
Since I do now have a few hours (about 60) on my CW does anyone recommend any special maintenance other that the std lube, clearing the dust, calib. Offset etc.? I was thinking of possibly sending it to CW and having them do a checkup. Any thoughts on that?
I feel sorry for the few that have had problems right out of the box and have gotten the chicken with the broken egg feeling. They are missing out on a lot of fun..