CNC Toolpath Efficiency: Cutting Tenons

[4DThinker]

For a decade or so I cut joinery for students furniture projects using a CNC. Most often the job was simple tenons on the end of long or short stretchers.   I've written up some tips learned over time, and added a video of my CNC cutting a tenon.  All just posted on my blog HERE.  

 

My former department head was desperate for me to leave step by step process info for how i came up with CNC joinery. The simple truth is that most CNC cut joinery could have been done another way, and is no more challenging to set up than flat work is on the CNC.  The material size is an end view of the stretcher rather than the width and length of the part laying flat. 

4D 

[John Morris]

Your blog is full of wonderful information 4D, thanks for sharing!

[4DThinker]

Thanks John.  I have another blog about technology that is full of tech reviews.  Many are about mp3 players that used to be in high demand before smart  phones took over. I stopped adding posts in that blog when I got divorced and the household income was cut in half. What surprises me is that the tech blog still gets hundreds of hits every day.  My 4DFurniture blog started after that and has become a repository and autobiography for things I learned/discovered, things I taught, and projects I've made or helped students make.  On a good day it may get 40 hits, but usually just 5-10. 

 

As time goes on writing about past projects has become a great memory exercise. In contemplation I get to relive the experiences of designing and making and showing the projects.  I was lucky to win 4 national awards for my furniture designs.  For many years luck was my guess about my success.  In reflection though I realized every project I won an award for had a unique property compared to the projects I competed against. I've stressed this property to my students for the last 20 years or so and found for most it is a difficult quality to achieve in their designs.   I write about it HERE. 

4D