High
tech cnc carving has taken school projects
a long way from a hammer, chisel and a block
of wood that wound up being a birdhouse for Mom.
Today’s students are using CAD
programs and cnc
machines to make a carving that includes
intricate design features. The experiences help
give them a running start with the skills they
will need for tomorrow’s job market. Cnc
carving is the process of using a computerized
machine carving away the unwanted material
from a stock piece, leaving only the computer
aided design piece. A computer numerical controlled
machine can maintain extremely tight tolerances
to produce pieces with a very high level of precision.
They can carve virtually any material,
including metal, wood, plastic and even ice.
Specialized
computer software takes CAD designs and ‘tells’ the
cnc machine to cut a specified amount of material
from a stock piece with specialized cutting
tools. The machine will make a series of precision
cuts on multiple axes to yield the finished
cnc carving. Virtually any object that can
be designed with a CAD program can be carved
with a cnc machine.
A cnc carving can be extremely intricate within
extremely tight tolerances. Once the machine
is set, hundreds and even thousands of identical
pieces can be carved. Tolerances as tight as
0.005 inches are possible.
One
of the advantages of a cnc wood carving is
that when the CAD design is created, the cnc
machine can be used to make one or many identical
pieces. Students in many schools are learning
to come up with an idea for the project and design
it with a computer and a CAD program. The design
is then controlled number of cuts made by the
cnc machine to produce a perfectly carved piece.
Elaborate desks, coffee tables and other projects
are now being built in many schools with this
technology and equipment. Students
in schools are given projects as a means of
teaching them the technology and the machine
operating skills necessary to run this equipment.
Cnc
carving skills are necessary for design and
development work as well as actual production.
These are the important skills these students
are learning. They are developing the ideas,
creating the designs and using specialized software
to translate them into designs to be used by
the cnc machines. The actual operation of the
machine requires only a minimum of skill relating
to properly loading the stock material and removing
the finished pieces. These skills development
prepare the students for a much different career
than could have been imagined when schools taught
students to build birdhouses with a hammer, saw
and piece of wood.
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