First a bit of personal history. Long before I took up woodworking as a hobby and later furniture making as a profession I had a long career as a designer. Though, I had a traditional design background, when personal computers first appeared in the late 70’s and early 80’s I jumped in quickly and started using these new tools in my design work. So, when I took up woodworking in the mid-90’s it only made sense that I continued to use software as my tool of choice for design. By the late 90’s I started having all my furniture patterns and some parts CNC’d out and have continued that until 2014 when I obtained my own CNC machine.
Why did it take so long to get my own CNC machine?
A number or reasons. The costs involved are always a consideration-these can be expensive machines. But, for me it was important to have a well thought out plan on what I was I going to do and how I was going to do it in place ahead of time. I knew early on that I wanted to ultimately do some different things with a CNC of my own so I had to have a solid plan for the hardware I needed, the software I would use and how I would integrate this process into my work. I’ll get into the details of that plan in future posts.
