Plant Stand Project Using New Threading Tool Path

[Tailmaker]

I have been working on a design of a small plant stand for our dining room. It was supposed to have 3 shelves and accommodate a room corner location. This was the original idea:

Normally I would have put that together with mortise and tenons or dowels. But given the recent availability of threading tool paths in Aspire/Vcarve I decided to try threaded connectors.
Also, since our dining room furniture is made from Acacia, I wanted to make the plant stand from Acacia as well. I love the wild grain pattern but unfortunately this is not available here as lumber. So I resorted to buying a box of solid Acacia hardwood floor panels:

These were planed and drum sanded flat and glued up as blanks for all components:

Worked pretty well and this is the result after CNC cutting, sanding and finishing:

[Tailmaker]

Continued....
The blanks for the legs were just barely larger than the part and clamps/tabs were no option, so I had to make a custom vacuum pod to hold them down, allowing for the big wooden fastener holes:

The threaded bolts were cut individually, as were the threaded inserts (nuts). If I had to do this again I would make a fixture for multiple bolts/nuts.

To shape the bolt heads I made a gang fixture to reduce tool changes:

[Tailmaker]

Continued:
Nut inserts glued into the shelf plates and the legs:

Assembly finished:

I could not resist…The wooden screws needed a wooden screwdriver:

[Tailmaker]

Continued:
In final location (but not yet with final plants):

Alternate Use....

[SteveNelson46]

Wow! What a nice project. Fine workmanship too.

[jfederer]

Innovative design and excellent workmanship! Very inspiring. Also, thanks for the reference to the cutters. Not easy to find!

[mtylerfl]

Outstanding work, GB! Great job incorporating the new threading feature into your fine project - I love it!!

[gkas]

Wow... Great job. It came out really nice.

...and I thought I was doing good with putting new auto-trim to use

[scottp55]

Beautiful design and execution G. !!
Really Liking it!!
Congrats on such a fine piece and the nice walk through!!
scott

[jay pieper]

Hey Tailmaker

What a great design and completed project.
That will get you bonus points from the wife.
I really like the alternate use of your plant stand,
must be a guy thing. Good height for the wine glass.
Way ahead of me I just looked at the threading
tool path thats as far as I got.

[Leo]

Love it.

The slotted screw tops are so cool. The color combinations and shelves are awesome. I can't wait to try something with the thread milling.

[Tailmaker]

Thanks for the nice words, guys!
It was a fun project and the outcome was great, but as always way more work than expected.

[SteveNelson46]

Thanks for the nice words, guys!
It was a fun project and the outcome was great, but as always way more work than expected.

That's what makes it fun. Unless you are trying to make a bunch of them.

[Jan.vanderlinden]

Beautiful piece of work.
And the screws are perfect.
I'm going to look into using Acacia wood.

[Tailmaker]

.....I'm going to look into using Acacia wood....

It is wonderful to work with on the CNC, sands and finishes great. Alas, if one could only get this in the US as lumber boards.
For small projects (plates, coasters, knife scales, pistol grips etc.) you can get Acacia cutting boards as raw material almost everywhere and cheaply.
But for larger things like this project, the planing, drum sanding and glue-up process of the hardwood floor boards took almost as long as the rest. I probably would not do this again.
While the Acacia takes fine detail when carving, I would not use it for 3-d projects. The grain pattern would probably overwhelm and obscure any carving detail.