Showcase
20 whole jobs.Start to finish.
Each one is followed from a blank screen to something you could build. Pick a tool to see its jobs, or search for the kind of thing you make.
20 videos
Whole project · 8:36A carriage that shuttles between two limit switches: the whole project
A rack-and-pinion carriage and its control logic, built from a blank drawing in six steps. The drawing side is rectangles, the Gear tool, a rack added to the gear by a right-click, and an assembly. The Motion window gives it a slide and a motor; the Controls section adds two limit switches, a counter, two buttons and a gate, and five rules that read as plain sentences; the control panel runs it. It shows a machine's wiring tried out on the drawing before anything is built: what each switch is for, what each rule does, and the log of what happened.
Whole project · 5:04A carved relief: the whole project
A relief carved from a depth picture, start to finish in four chapters. The picture is opened in the picture window, carved as a Relief, shaped with Flat background, Fade the edge, Fullness and Depth, and placed; the CNC job roughs it with an end mill and carves it with a tapered ball nose, with the passes, ridges, depth and run time in plain sight. Shape it brings the picture back to turn the head into a mold, a 3D model is added beside it from an STL file, and the simulator carves the whole job and finds nothing to fix.
Whole project · 7:42A carved shop sign: the whole project
A carved shop sign followed from a blank drawing to a machine. A 600 by 300 mm board is drawn by typing its size; WORKSHOP is set in a carving font round an arc; a border band is made by two offsets; an emblem is traced from a picture. Everything inside the edge is V-carved, with an end mill clearing the flat floors; the outline is cut out last, ramped in, on four tabs placed by hand, starting on the bottom edge. The simulator finds nothing to fix, a job sheet and three programs are written, and the first program is framed, checked, started, paused, resumed and run to its end on a pretend router.
Whole project · 7:09A flip-up cabinet door on a gas strut: the whole project
A wall cabinet's flip-up door, from a blank drawing to the strut to buy and where to screw it. The cabinet is drawn from the side with rectangles and typed sizes; the door is pinned at its hinge with stops and pulled by hand; Check for hits finds the door's back corner binding on the cabinet top and the Clearance tool gives it a 2 mm reveal. A gas strut between two drawn studs is sized by the program (71.6 N holds this 3 kg door level; an 80 N strut is fitted), let go to see the door stay shut and stay open, and its fixing point is tried in a worse place and put back. The last chapter reads off the strut's lengths, saves a film of the swing and dimensions the fixing points.
Whole project · 8:17A geared trip hammer: the whole project
A geared trip hammer built from a blank drawing in seven steps: a frame and a hammer from rectangles with typed sizes, a cam wheel made with Array and Weld, two pairs of gears placed on the meshing ring, a pin, a motor and a crank with a slide. It shows the ordinary drawing tools and snaps, the Gear tool, layers as heights, assemblies, the Motion window's joints, the gear train's table and ratio, parts pushing each other by touch alone, weight, Check for hits and the Clearance tool, Trace, Slow motion and Save a film. Nothing in the machine is scripted to move: the motor turns one gear and everything else follows from how the parts are drawn.
Whole project · 4:26A photo on wood: the whole project
A photo was engraved on wood and cut out with a frame. The film shows the picture window at its Laser choice, the picture on the drawing shown as it will burn, the ways of burning it (Dither, Newsprint, Threshold, Grayscale), brightness, contrast and line spacing with the run time following, the dots seen close up, a material test made from its numbers, a frame drawn on a Cut layer, and the preview with its clock.
Whole project · 6:56A toggle clamp for a jig: the whole project
A toggle clamp for a jig, from a blank drawing to two working clamps and a plate ready to cut. The four parts are drawn from the side as rectangles and slots with typed sizes and welded where two shapes make one part. Four clicks pin them into a four-bar linkage that is pulled by hand; stops on the link make the lock, and a spring under the pad shows it: short of center the clamp springs open, past center it holds. A fence in the handle's way is found with Check for hits and moved with the Clearance tool, the pad's path is traced, the spindle is stretched for thicker work with its dimension following, and the whole clamp is copied, joints and all, onto a second plate. The plate is drawn from above with mirrored holes and checked for cutting.
Whole project · 4:05An inlaid box lid: the whole project
A box lid with a word inlaid in it. The lid and the word are drawn from a blank drawing; the Inlay window shows the pocket and the plug seated, to scale; a test coupon is drawn and simulated first; then Make the inlay carves the pocket in the lid and draws the mirrored plug on a board of its own, as a second piece of the job with its own zero and program. Each piece is simulated with nothing to fix. A last chapter shows the same window with a straight bit, and a bowtie.
Whole project · 4:27Bringing your work over: the whole project
Work made elsewhere was brought into the program and made ready to cut. The film shows a laser project file opening with its layers and cut settings in the laser job, an SVG dropped on the window with its colors as layers, Tidy up for cutting mending a drawing with doubled lines and an open corner, Weld making overlapping letters one outline, and Nest the selected shapes packing copies onto a sheet the size of a laser's bed.
Whole project · 9:47Cabinet parts, from cut list to sheets: the whole project
A 24 inch base cabinet taken from its cut list to labelled, nested sheets. The cut list is imported from a spreadsheet file, an arched toe valance and four corner gussets are drawn and added as shaped parts, and all fifteen pieces are nested on a sheet of 3/4 in plywood and one of 1/4 in, with parts moved by hand and the overlap warning shown. The CNC job comes ready with a piece for each sheet, its stock the sheet's material and zero at the sheet's corner. On the nested sheet the Sides get a dado and shelf-pin holes; Add operation makes the dadoes a pocket and the holes a drilling operation, the pocket gets dogbone corners, the parts are cut out in a safe order with tabs on the small ones, and the job comes out with no problems found. A job sheet, a label for every piece and a map of each sheet finish it.
Whole project · 7:06Fifty name tags from a list: the whole project
Fifty name tags were made from one drawn tag and a spreadsheet list. The film shows drawing with typed sizes and layers, text and a QR code with fields in braces, a CSV list filling them, Make many laying out a copy for every row, the laser job with its Fill and Line layers, tabs, order, run time, kept settings and start point, the preview with its clock, and the Machine window with a pretend laser: connect, home, frame, start, pause, resume.
Whole project · 4:37Longer than the machine, and cut from both faces: the whole project
Two router jobs that need the stock moved by hand, set up from blank drawings. A bookcase side 1800 mm long is drawn by typed sizes, its housings pocketed and its outline tabbed, then cut in three tiles with seams shown on the drawing and dowel holes that place the next tile. A tray is cut from both faces: side two is added as a second piece, an operation is sent to it, and side one drills the dowel holes the board is turned over on. Each tile and each side is its own program, checked in the simulator and saved with the drawing.
Whole project · 3:02Round work, and a cabinet laser: the whole project
A band of lettering was made for a tumbler turned on a rotary, and the same job was then made for a cabinet laser. The film shows drawing the band flat and standing it on end, the laser job's Round work on a rotary with its warning and its sums, a pretend cabinet laser added by hand, the job checked against that laser's bed, the program saved as the laser's own kind of file and sent, and the plain words that the head is moved at the laser's own panel.
Whole project · 1:28A built-in under a stair, start to finish
A piece no cabinet type covers, taken through the program in five parts: a stepped built-in for under a stair is made panel by panel in Custom Build, with its sizes typed and a shelf added and fitted; it is put in the job, turned in 3D and given a finish; the Shop Package stops because the back is bigger than a 4 by 8 sheet, and Use 5 by 10 sheets lays the job out again; the sheets and part labels are looked through; and the shop package is made. One job all the way through.
Whole project · 2:41A kitchen, start to finish
One sample kitchen taken through the whole program in one sitting, in eight parts: the wall is laid out in Kitchen Plan and built; a cabinet's height is typed and another is changed to drawers; the doors and drawers are opened and a cabinet pulled apart; the wall cabinets are given another finish; the customer is entered, a version saved and the customer package made; the sheets and the part labels are looked through; a sheet is cut on the virtual CNC; and the shop package is made. One job all the way through.
Whole project · 2:01A measured house, room by room
A sample house of nine rooms is brought in from a ShopReady Field job file and taken through in five parts: the import and the House Plan with its checks and levels; the kitchen opened from the plan and laid out with Kitchen Plan; a second room opened and given a run of cabinets; the whole house seen in 3D with the cabinets in it; and the customer's walkthrough built, opened, and walked into the kitchen.
Clip · 2:14A box, and a lid made to fit it
A box 80 by 60 by 40 is hollowed with a center rectangle pushed down 37, leaving walls and a floor 3 thick. The lid is drawn on the box's own rim, its two corners snapped to the box's corners, and pulled up 3 as a part of its own. A lip 0.2 smaller each side than the hollow is drawn on the lid's top and pushed down through it. The eyes in the Parts tab hide each part in turn to show the lip and the hollow.
Clip · 2:25A bracket, start to finish
A mounting bracket is made from nothing in about two minutes: a plate 100 by 60 by 10, a round boss pulled up from a circle drawn on its top, a pocket pushed in, the corners rounded, a hole through the boss and four screw holes set out as a pattern. Every size is typed.
Clip · 2:21A knob spun from half its outline, and its plate
A plate 80 by 60 by 6 gets a hole in its middle and beveled edges. Then half a knob's outline is drawn standing up on the front plane, with a line up its middle, and Spin turns it into a knob whose stem stands in the plate's hole. Typing 270 opens it to show the section; a notch cut in its rim marks where it points.
Clip · 2:19A phone stand, with a back that leans
A base 80 by 70 by 8 is pulled up from the ground. The back leans at 70 degrees, so it is drawn on a plane of its own, set up with Draw, On a tilted plane: a rectangle 70 by 110 with a round opening, pulled 6 thick. The two parts are joined, a lip is drawn on the base's top from the base's own corner and pulled up 12, and the back's top corners are rounded.