Koi fish carved with a rotary setup for 3-sided CNC

3-sided rotary CNC routing with the Shapeoko – carving a Koi fish

Modifications to the Shapeoko XXL CNC frame and bed were made to accommodate a manual rotary setup that allows for multi-sided 3D carving of objects (along a B-axis) that are too big to fit underneath the X-gantry rail.

To show proof of concept, I carved a Koi fish from a solid stack of plywood with 3-sided CNC routing.

Software used:

• Meshmixer to create the 3D Koi fish
• Vectric VCarve to generate the tool paths
• UGS Platform to send the Gcode to the CNC

Materials used:

• Everbilt 1 inch square tubes with 5/16″ holes spaced 1″ apart
• 1/4″ steel triangular plates
• 3/8″ bolts (the 5/16″ holes were widened with the drill press)
• 18 mm (3/4″) Sande plywood: 4 sheets of 600×600 mm (4’x4′)
• Surfacing bit to flatten and pocket the stock: WhiteSide #1027A
• Extra long roughing bit: Amana Tool end mill #46590
• Extra long finishing bit: Amana Tool ball nose #46490