newbie B model purchase
Stats on the machine - 54 hrs cut time, scan time 22 hrs, service hrs 82, Total on 119 hrs.
I live on 30 acres near a small town in Idaho (pop 362). I just took an early retirement from the Forest Service (GIS analyst) 2 months ago after 32 years… I have a friend that invested in a Carvewright machine B series with her ‘friend’ a couple years ago. She paid for it. He registered it in his name. They parted ways, so she wants to sell the machine (and probe and bit set) now. I don’t really know the guy, but he did accept my facebook friend request and his reply to my msg was ‘unless you’re getting a killer deal you may want to just get a newer one...all the bits have changed as that one is the older version...’ He does have some patterns he would share…
She said I can check it out, see if I like it… I just got it 5 days ago, and I’m already hooked on the software and capabilities. She had to call in so that I could register it in my name, just to try it out. I’m thinking this could be just what I’m looking for to fill the long winter hours. My dad just gave me some hand carving tools, and my husband Monte has done some awesome carving and scrimshaw, but this is ‘way’ up my alley. I want to incorporate it with my woodburning and maybe some intarsia or inlays.
It looks like it needs a good cleaning – and I’ll get to the machine part of it… I’m still hooked on the software. To be honest, I’ve already ordered a dust collector attachment from redneck blues and a dust collector machine. Wasn’t sure one of our shop vacs would handle it… Monte says I can set it up in the big shop to check it out, and I already have plans on moving and wiring up an old outbuilding for my woodworking shop, but need to do a bit of logging first. I sure don’t want it to be my fault if the band equipment got messed up! Guess I should start a business to write it off… But I don’t really want a job. I’m supposed to be taking it easy.
From what I've been reading on the forum, it's not worth near the $1500 she wants for it. I'm looking forward to the design part of it - not problems with an old machine. I'm not even sure if that's a 'carbide' bit set that can be converted to the 'carvetight'... I think it's at least $100 to convert the bits to a $160 carvetight head plus the non-transferrable pattern designer software and heavy duty belts?... And then doing it… Upgrade pkg $425? And I’ll probably want the dxf or stl importer… I don’t know about that yet. I’m guessing I will want a sanding mop.
I guess I just kinda miss so many hours on my computer. I just loaded an old Corel Draw 8 program that I never had time for, hoping I can do the greyshades for import. I have paintshop pro, but am not getting the results I wanted. I would like to do my own designs – I might need a digitizing pen. I don’t really want premade patterns.
Monte is definitely a ‘Mr. Fixit’ – but I’m not sure he’s ready to take time away from his guns and Harleys… I warned him that if I retired early there might be more ‘Honey Dos’ around here.
My other friend owns a sawmill and has a lot of cedar, red fir and pine waste wood that I would like to utilize. I know I would need to make some kind of ‘sled’ to get the ‘wane’ look. And a planer… and the list goes on.
I'm guessing $800-1000? I know she won't like that, but... I can only quilt or paint for so long…
I could get hooked on doing this kind of thing now that I'm retired - when I'm not gardening! But, I never would have known about something like this if not for this small town situation...
This seems like such a good forum! Hard to sort through all the posts for a newbie, but I think I can handle it!
This is my first .mpc just doing simple graphic imports... Says ~ 2 hrs to carve. I'm sure it could be optimized if I knew what I was doing!! Let it snow!
let_it_snow_12x16.mpc
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Using "A" machines 1.187 1.188 ,2.007, 3.103