Experimental Board Carrier

[bergerud]

Today I made a long carrier base. It holds up to 34" long boards. It may be the most useful size for users who just want to carve one side of a variety of board sizes. I have a slightly different idea for using it. It is not too heavy but it is long. I was thinking that if one always put the board in the middle, it could be kept balanced. To this end I think I will make a few touch holes along the length. One would have to jog to the nearest touch hole. (If one wants to measure the board width that is. If one uses the carrier width, no touch hole is needed.) I have yet to experiment with it.

Here are some pictures of the different sizes.

[edsingletary]

Just curious, I'm not yet advanced into carriers yet, but I will need to in order to carve on a board pre carved. But why are the ends angled, what purpose does it serve aside from looking cool.

[bergerud]

Just curious, I'm not yet advanced into carriers yet, but I will need to in order to carve on a board pre carved. But why are the ends angled, what purpose does it serve aside from looking cool.

I did not want a sharp corner to catch when loading it into the machine. The top has to be longer to stay under the rollers but the bottom only has to stay on the belts and so that extra weight is not needed. Ok, it just looks cool!

(Actually, now that you made me think about it, the original design was on a base board. The weight of the base board was limiting the length of the jig. I angled the ends to minimize the size of the base board. No one saw that model. Then, after eliminating the base board all together, I liked how the angles looked and just kept them.)

[edsingletary]

Cool, thanks, so when can I order mine.

[bergerud]

Testing of the long carrier base is going pretty well. One has to have the out feed tables adjusted. They are also useful to roll the carrier in and out of the machine. Instead of sliding on sandpaper or rubber, the rollers make it easy.

Here is a picture of a carrier being made in a carrier. (Rise of the machines!)

[bergerud]

Here is a video of the long carrier base being used to cut out some more parts. Just drop the board in and away it goes. When it is finished, just lift the board out. This changes the machine for me. Like the scanning sled, something like this should have been a standard accessory for the machine right from the get go. Now that I have it before me, it seems so simple. Why had we not thought of this before?

[Dale]

As mentioned before you need to make these plans available throught the PatternDepot so you can be somewhat reimbursed for your time and effort! Great job.

[bergerud]

As mentioned before you need to make these plans available throught the PatternDepot so you can be somewhat reimbursed for your time and effort! Great job.

Thanks, Dale. I think that is what I will do. I think the plans as well as detailed instructions as to its construction and use would make a good project for the depot.

I welcome any forum member who can make enough sense out of my posts to make and use a carrier to do so. I would appreciate feedback and ideas as I work on a user manual. At this point I think there will be two models. A basic long carrier for the single sided projects and a shorter, more advanced model. The advanced model would provide a base for advanced carving techniques. Things like accurate double sided carving, replication, and precise pattern placement.

[bergerud]

Here is what I am going to call the Advanced Carrier Base. I made this one out of 1/2" MDF and it seems ok. The only thing i did different was make the touch hole in the rail 5/16" instead of 3/8".

This is supposed to be the "Swiss Army Knife" version. It can just hold a board on the sandpaper rails or it can be used for more elaborate things. With the sandpaper rails flipped over, boards or fixtures can be slid in and out without lifting the head as it can be used as a clamp to hold boards without the need for the above roller pressure.

I plan on finding many uses for this thing.

[PSQRD]

Well done! Just an fyi, I tried doing a 14.5" board last night with no luck. It kept telling me to clear board sensor, I played around with it a bit, still no luck. My thoughts are we can probably only carve up to 14" wide if you count the remainder of the inset of the carrier on both sides. Just to further explain, my carrier is 1/2" mdf all the way around which means the rails or at least the distance from the keypad is counted by the machine when it comes to measuring. Maybe 14 1/4? I'll make an attempt when I come back from this trip at something a slight bit less as wide and see what happens. I wasn't getting the error until the z chuck got to the far side of the machine. The current model looks pretty phenomenal, and on a side note you were right, the electrical tape did provide enough friction for the board not to move (even with one pass using a 3/16 cutting bit through 7/8 board), at least on a flat one, I haven't reattempted a twisted board again yet.