Inspiration
A while ago I found out about Evil Mad Scientist Labs font coasters. I thought it would be lots of fun to make my own, and so I began scanning for fonts and material. I decided that Times New Roman was too drab, and settled on something more exciting Webdings. I had been putting this project off until I found a roll of cork in the basement, and then I had no excuse. What follows is an attempt at documenting the process of making a font coaster on a CNC router.
The Photos
Here are the photos. The coaster is a ) (right-parenthesis) in Wingdings.
This is how it looks in EMC.
The machine over a piece of 1/4 cork. I just tacked it down with blue tape, because Im too lazy to do anything else.
The initial plunge. Im using a 1/8 end mill from Drill Bit City.
Cork cuts like a dream. Smooth edges, and I can cut pretty deep. I was using depth passes of 0.08, but really could have done 0.12 (or deeper) if I wanted.
The dust is pretty fine and hard to clean up, so a vacuum is a must. I really need to make a vacuum mount so I dont have to hold it myself.
Engraving the inner ring.
Cutting out the final shape.
The finished coaster. Its about 3.25 in diameter. I accidentally cut the inner ring 10 times deeper than I meant to. It should be 0.014 deep instead of 0.14 deep, but at least it shows up well in this photo.
Thats really it for coasters, as I make more designs Ill put up more photos.