CNC Routers: Wood Crafters Build Their Own Machines

  My blog about wood crafters at the Renegade Artfair included a mention of  Dave Marcoullier, who was was selling a form of marquetry and router art he had developed using a Porter Cable router guided by a CNC platform he built himself from a kit.   

Marcoullier, who sells his work at art shows like Renegade, through galleries, and at Etsy.com, told me his work is frequently commissioned - a heart surgeon orders a heart, a chiropracter a spinal column - while he also makes projects to sell from inventory at shows, using reclaimed or FSC certified wood when possible, and finishing them in natural oils.

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Looking into the kits for homemade CNCs, I ran across Buildyourowncnc.com, developed by Patrick Hood-Daniel. The site offers kits of tabletop CNCs all the way up to a 4x8-foot model, with up to three-axis versions offered, while the works are controlled by chain drives or screw drives. Gantries and chassis are built of wood. (A woodworking shop teacher used a kit to build a CNC for his students to use, telling Hood-Daniel, "I am very excited to see what I and my students can do with it . . I definitely think that I could help students build a CNC machine using your book and videos as a reference if I were allowed to hand pick the students."

Another do-it-yourself CNC, this one a hand-hold model, was developed recently by MIT students. It consists of a positioning-correcting chassis that guides the router cutting head along a precise path. The video we have posted shows a DeWalt router operating in the MIT system.

click image to zoomDave Marcoullier produces wood cutting boards and wall hangings made with a Porter-Cable CNC router mounted on a CNC he built from a kit.