Maker Nerd Dream: The CarveWright Woodworking System

First go here: The CarveWright Woodworking System. I’ll wait. If you’re a CNC nerd, be sure you have a towel handy, because you’re gonna drool. Back? Did you read how the guys that make this thing are ex-NASA robotics engineers? Did you watch the video and see how it carves amazing detailed and intricate designs? Did you download the free trial software and design a few things of your own? Do you want one now? The final blow for me was when I went to that download page. I had first seen the machine rebranded as the Sears Craftsman CompuCarve, and noted that it was said to support Windows only. But when I went to the CarveWright site, I noticed a little prompt for PC or Mac on the download page. I figured they were gauging interest. I was blown away when I saw that Mac Disk Image (.dmg) file started downloading. But I didn’t believe it. Maybe it was a Windows installer wrapped in a .dmg, for us dual-boot Intel Mac users. I was wrong — it’s all Mac, baby. I fired up the program and started playing with the library of designs. The software is completely intuitive and it looks to be extremely powerful. In addition to the library of designs, you can create your own using the built-in lines, rectangles, circles and spirals. There’s a type tool as well! You can drill holes and route edges, create 3D pattern fills over areas. The hardware is impressive as well, though obviously if you don’t have it in front of you, you can’t play with it. The specs look amazing: It carves soft materials like wood and plastic, but not glass, stone, metals, ceramics, or concrete. It handles work pieces up to 14 inches wide, 5 inches thick, and 12 feet long. It has bit adapters that let you use almost any 1/2- or 1/4-inch bit. It will cut your work piece to size if your design is smaller than the piece of stock. There’s even a freakin’ probe device you can use to copy existing carved items — say to reproduce an antique moulding! I haven’t yet researched how fast the CarveWright does its thing, but I won’t begrudge it for taking a while. That little bit inside has a lot of work to do, and no doubt large pieces would take quite a while to complete. Considering that I don’t have the skills to carve even a small 4″ × 5″ item to save my life, I can deal with the wait. So now I’m off to see what other cool things you can do with it, especially to see how to create more advanced designes. I’d love to use this to make carved panels with Buddha images for myself and as gifts for friends. Since it cuts too, maybe I could use it to build parts for that R2-D2 Astromech I wanted to build a couple of years ago — but couldn't get into because of the amount of custom CNC work needed. I’m thrilled to see a relatively affordable CNC device for the mass market. So many geeks, in addition to spending inordinate amounts of time not watching TV, really enjoy creating things. Physical, touchable things. This device lets talented, creative people create physical items that before they couldn't even attempt. How cool is that?