Vectric Customer

I am trying to make a ring for my son out of solid brass round stock 1.5" diameter. I don't have a rotary axis on my mini mill and am trying to figure a way to carve a skull on the curved side and then set it on end for the ring hole. I could tell the machine it is 1.5" flat stock, but that would be a lot of "air" carving. I've included the first try using the flat end of the stock and then drilling perpendicular to the long axis for the ring hole. I would like to "flatten" the skull to wrap around the curvature of the bar. And "YES" this is a very heavy ring! Any thoughts?

Could you do a variation of this?

YES. Now tell me how you did it.

I started with an .stl of the elf. Selected a cut plane near her earlobes and discarded the back of the head. Made X, Y at center of material.
Made a component slightly smaller than the walking stick diameter (your brass rod).
Touched off Z on the high point of the rod, which became the tip of the nose. Your skull probably has a similar high point at the nasal bone. My stick was held in a drilled hole at the top of the stick and the far end just clamped down.
Did a rough cut, then a finish cut. Then sliced the extra length of stick off the top with a band saw. You'd cut both ends away from the skull and drill the finger hole.

Here's another option, if you have a probe or have wanted a reason to get one.
http://www.scorchworks.com/Blog/auto-pr ... de-ripper/

highpockets wrote:Here's another option, if you have a probe or have wanted a reason to get one.
http://www.scorchworks.com/Blog/auto-pr ... de-ripper/

I actually have a digitizer I bought from Gary Mast on this forum. It is awesome have used it several times. Could not have asked for a better deal either.

I'd like to think I know what I'm doing, but clearly, I have missed the point somewhere. I imported the skull and discarded the back material. Then I created a half-round component with a 2 rail sweep. I set the skull inside the stock material. But I can't seem to select the right component/areas/or something to let Aspire know it is round stock instead of flat even though I can see the component.

Try using add on the skull model instead of merge.

dwilli9013 wrote:
I actually have a digitizer I bought from Gary Mast on this forum. It is awesome have used it several times. Could not have asked for a better deal either.

I bought one from Eric at Crafty CNC and despite me trying to drive it through a work piece it's still working great.

I'm not sure you even need to model the brass rod. Just the skull; unless you want the skull embossed on the surface of the rod like Highpockets showed.
The skull size is driven by the wearer's finger size. The drilled hole needs to be smaller than the mandible or you will cut thru the carved surface.
With the .stl model I used, I had to distort the mandible to be wider and also increase "Z" height to get a size 11 ring. And the drilled hole is offset back from the skull face.

I guess I was trying to make it too difficult...... I milled it last night & it came out great. Thanks for your help.

wdwkr53 wrote:I guess I was trying to make it too difficult...... I milled it last night & it came out great. Thanks for your help.

Well we are all anxiously awaiting a photo of the final piece.....

Good to hear. Please post a pic when you get it polished up.

Since it is going to be a while before I can "finish" the ring, I thought I'd at least post what I have so far. I ruined the first by a wrong move with the larger hole drill. But I'm getting there. thanks.