All,
October was a smaller crowd on a rainy day (somebody blamed the weather, somebody blamed ACL), but the folks who made it brought some really cool stuff!
CJ joined on Zoom with a signage project designed in AI and Adobe Illustrator, which, as CJ pointed out, also goes by AI. So, AI for AI, & then the CNC to cut them out!
Pete took his cue from ChatGPT this month! It walked him through the spiral gadget in VCarve step by step, and the new taper he turned on the rotary went a lot quicker than the molding toolpath he used before. His collars get 1/8" grooves cut on the CNC, 24 karat gold leaf in the bottom, and clear epoxy over the top, and it turns out fantastic. A lot of us look at a project and say good enough. Pete doesn’t.
Next up for him is engraving his name on the cue instead of using a printed decal (those are his engraving tests up top). He also asked the room how to photograph something long, skinny and glossy, and got the most CNC SIG answer possible: mount the camera on the CNC.
Brian brought round two of his Gridfinity gadget. Last month it cut the baseplate for a drawer, and now it does bin bottoms too, so he passed the test pieces around for us to check the fit, and it was solid!
He’s spent the last four weeks building it with AI, and the gadget’s on his site: Asmbly Projects | 1Fifoto (heads up: the shop computers forget installed gadgets after a reboot, so you may need to install it again).
And his standing offer still stands: if you’re getting started and want someone to sit with you while YOU run the machine through a project, Brian will help you with it.
Tony brought an MDF flag he cut with Zach’s zig-saw.com (from July). Zig-saw didn’t set a feed speed, Tony didn’t know that yet, so he hit start and let it run. Fourteen hours later, it completed! The fix is to open the G-code and set the speed yourself. Next up for Tony is a Mayan calendar, and the advice from the room was V-carve.
A couple of other useful notes from the meeting:
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Last month’s tip was O-flutes for foam and plastic. This month the O-flute fan club made the case for wood too: the chips clear out instead of packing in, and they’re so sharp you’ll want gloves to handle one.
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Not sure which bits to buy? Michael’s advice: hang out at the CNC, ask people for their top three bits, and buy two of each, because you’re going to break one.
We also have the October CNC SIG recording here for anyone who wants to revisit the discussion or catch what they missed:
Next CNC SIG: Sunday, November 1, 2026, 12:30 PM Central. Come early for the Laser SIG at 11:00 AM (CO2 lasers, Michael’s crew) and make it a double-header. The clocks fall back that morning, so you even get an extra hour of sleep. Bring a project, bring a failure, bring yourself!
If you’re attending remotely, the Zoom meeting is here:
Cya guys then!
@jamesfreeman @SteveW @sneezix @bwatt @cjromb @atwatsoniii @rjnevels @pconklin2000 @andrewl @michleon100
