Not sure why but I wasn’t super excited for the 4-axis mill. As a machine, what it does can be magical. However, it just felt unapproachably expensive. It’s not something you’ll find in your standard makerspace. Nor is it something you’d ever buy.

Concept

But nevertheless, it can really do some different things that the other tools can’t quite achieve. For one, I figured it would be easy to print out a mini-prototype of the knob design that I wanted to build last semester (before we decided it was too difficult with our knowledge at the time).

alt The dream knob, with ridges.

Material

alt Some leftover dowel from lathe projects.

Setup

alt Setting up the blank.

alt Setting up the axes.

alt Big estimate. Not as scary as I thought it would be.

alt This interface is overwhelming.

Processing

alt Cutting it up.

alt Rough pass. Kind of skeptical it will turn out well.

alt Finishing pass! It looks greater than I thought.

alt Getting dusty.

Final

I added a light coat of tung oil to darken it just a little.

alt

Learnings

This machine seems frustratingly slow.

The way it contours material could be improved with some lathe-like toolpaths. For example, when it cuts tabs on both sides it hits one point on the left, lifts, hits one point on the right, lifts, rotates slightly, and repeats. Whereas it seems like it would be a lot more efficient (for round stock) to rough in a circular motion to reduce bit travel time…

Also this community roundnose drillbit has seen some better days. Definitely get your own if you plan on doing more work with this machine.

If I did this again, I’d print it without tabs… and just bandsaw and sand to finish to really save on time. Your going to sand the two tabbed sides anyway…