Honey Bee Inlay: Fits Josh Worley's Candle Holder

Instructions

This project is sized to fit comfortably into the matchstick holder of Josh Worley's metric candle holder design, all instructions and tools used are specific to this scale. H - 40mm W - 30mm I started by taking a board of American Black Walnut and prepared the timber ready to cut with Shaper. This would be the part of the honey bee that will later be inserted into the match stick tray of the Oak candle holder. To complete this stage import the "Honey Bee Extrusion" SVG and place it in a desired spot of your workspace. Please note that each of the two SVG files are a mirror image of each other and so they are opposing each other 180° along the x-axis, this is not a mistake and is necessary in order for the two finished pieces to mate together. If you do decide to flip the orientation of one piece remember to do the same to the other piece so everything fits together nicely! Fit your 3mm ø router bit into the Shaper spindle, set a depth of cut to 3mm and a feed rate of 250mmpm. The total depth of cut will be 6mm we will do this in 2 passes. Looking at the bee on Origin, the large wing will register as a pocket, I did this pocket cut first, there is no need to set an offset for this. Keeping the depth of cut at 3mm you can now go on to cut the smaller wing as well as the bee's body segments, these will register on shaper as an inside cut so be sure to set an offset of about 0.2mm, you should also do an inside cut of the large wing using this offset now too. Do not cut the bees head yet as the router bit is too large and you will cut into the eye. Now that the internals are cut, keeping the same settings you can now go onto cut the outline of the bee, on completion repeat each of these steps at a cut depth of 6mm. Change your bit out for one that is 1mm ø or slightly above, when using bits this small I like to set my feed rate to no more than 100mmpm, only remove material at depths of 2mm at a time. Starting with the bees head, pocket cut the area available that Shaper has displayed, this will vary depending on the size of bit you have fitted to shaper. Do not do an inside cut of the head at this time for risk of cutting into the eye. Keeping the depth of cut at 2mm go on to pocket the areas that are still in need of material removal. These are the small wing and the bottom body segment above the stinger. Also the several tight crevasses around the perimeter of the bee are to be cut using the outside cut with 0.2mm offset now. Repeat these cuts at a depth of 4mm then 6mm. Fit the 0.8mm ø bit into shaper and set your depth back to 2mm, repeat all of the above cuts again until you reach the 6mm depth, this time around you should notice that Shaper shows you this sized bit is able to fit into all of the remaining gaps that where previously inaccessible. Set your offset to zero, depth back to 2mm and make three outside cuts on the bees eye until you reach the desired 6mm depth, please ensure you are making an outside cut on the bees eye and not an inside cut on the bees head. That should now be the bulk of your material removed and the shape of the bee should be visible. It is time to make a final pass on all of the internal and external cut lines using the 0.8mm router bit, keeping the offset at zero. If you plan to do this final pass using Shapers auto or auto-locked feed rate setting I suggest setting a feed rate of 50mmpm, this final pass can be done in one pass at the full depth of 6mm. Using your marking knife, carefully remove as many frayed wood fibres that are still attached to the bee as you can. To remove the bee from your board of hardwood, fit the 3mm ø cutter into Shaper, set an offset of 2mm and using the outside cut, cut the outline of the bee in passes of no more than 5mm deep until you reach a depth that is about 1mm shallower than the thickness of your hardwood (17mm if your board is 18mm thick). Finally set a depth 1mm deeper than the thickness of your board and cut round the outline once more, only this time retract your spindle in a couple of spots, leave a small gap then re-plunge your spindle to create small tabs. These will prevent the workpiece from flying out and being damaged during cutting. These tabs can be popped off or chiselled on completion of cutting. A good visual diagram of this method is shown in step 19 of Josh Howley's project instructions for the candle holder. After completing step 12 of Josh Howley's project instructions you will be in a position to cut your honey bee inlay into your candle holder. Import the "Honey Bee Inlay" SVG and visually place it in the base of your matchstick holder using Origin, setting up 1mm grid spacing will help with the placement of the SVG. Fit the 1mm ø router bit to your spindle, ensure there is enough protrusion of the bit from the collet so that the bit is able to plunge to a depth of at least 14mm. When doing the z-touch for this new router bit ensure you do it into the matchstick tray so that shaper registers the bottom of the bit on the base of the matchstick tray and not the top face of your hardwood board. I would also recommend erasing your cut history at this point before starting to cut the honey bee, this way you can clearly identify what has been cut and what is still to be cut for this inlay. Setting an offset of 0.2mm and a feed rate of no more than 100mmpm make an inside cut along the entire edge of the bees perimeter at a depth of 2mm, our finishing depth will be 6.2mm to compensate for a small glue gap. Go on to make outside cuts on each of the bees body segments, wings and head. Note that Shaper will give the option to use Helix mode to cut some of these segments, if you are aware of how the Helix mode feature works and how to use it then you can utilise this feature to the full depth of 6.2mm to save yourself some time, if you are not confident in using Shapers Helix feature then continue as normal with your 2mm depth of pass. If you haven't done so already, make an inside cut on the bees eye to finish the first pass on everything at 2mm (the Helix feature may also be used here). Repeat each of the previous cuts, now with a depth set to 4mm. On completion of the 4mm pass, set your depth to 6.2mm and make your finishing depth of cut. You will notice that there are still some small sections of material that are still to be removed, position Shaper over one of these areas and change your cut option to pocket, you will now be able to remove these sections. If you cut into the material slowly and carefully, you should be able to remove all of this material at the final depth of 6.2mm. If you do not want to risk breaking your router bit then just remove the material from these pockets in 2mm increments. It is time to make a final pass on all of the internal and external cut lines. Set your offset to zero, then I recommend a feed rate to 50mmpm, if you plan to do this final pass using Shapers auto or auto-locked feed rate setting. This final pass can be done in one pass at the full depth of 6.2mm. Using your marking knife, carefully remove as many frayed wood fibres that are still attached to the bee as you can. Now take your extrusion piece and test the fit into the candle holder, in most cases this fitment will be too tight and some more material will need to be removed from the inlay piece. Set your offset to -0.05mm and make another finishing pass at 6.2mm deep on all of your inside and outside cuts. Please note that because there are both inside and outside cuts being made, when you set an offset of -0.05mm you are actually widening the gap of your inlay by 0.1mm. Therefor it is better to make small changes to offsets when getting the fitment correct, if you remove too much material and make the fit too loose you cannot replace that lost material. I guarantee you, you will kick yourself because of that mistake. Keep increasing your offset by -0.05mm each time until you get a good fit. I found that a final offset of -0.1mm created a nice friction fit in my workpiece where I was able to send the piece home using light taps with a mallet. Because the friction fit was good I felt there was no requirement to bond the two materials together with glue. Install your 6mm router bit and z-touch on the top face of your candle holder material, if the bottom face of your inserted piece of hardwood protrudes above the top face of your candle holder, set Shaper's spindle depth to do an 'aircut'. Position the router bit above the excess material to be removed and start a pocket cut into the matchstick area of the candle holder. Please note that you may need to carefully lift and tilt the base of origin to remove all of the excess material. When the bottom face of your inserted piece is roughly level with the top face of your candle holder set your depth of cut to 4mm and continue to pocket the excess material. Do the same again at a depth of 8mm. Step back and give yourself a pat on the back, it looks great doesn't it?! If you aren't completely happy with the result and there are a few small gaps between the two materials where the grain may have chipped out, try taking light passes in the pocket increasing the depth of cut slightly with each pass until you get to a point where you are satisfied. If you feel like that isn't working either it might be worth mixing a small amount of PVA glue with some of the sawdust from one of your hardwoods until you get something that resembles a paste like consistency and spread that into any gaps you may have, allow this to set for a few hours before lightly sanding off the excess and any gaps should now be barely visible. Good luck with you future projects! Ryndy