Campfire Stool
The Campfire Stool was a project that our CNC (computer numerical control) class undertook over the course of a semester. We got to choose the internal design, shape, etc. We just had to cut out the design 10 times with 4 spaces each and put it all together. The only limit we had was that it had to fit in a 11.5” x 11.5” space so we had enough space to cut it all out on half a board of MDF, and that each cut took less than 14 minutes.
The first step I took was I went into Fusion 360 and just doodled a general shape, and then slowly shaped the sides to what I thought I might want. I chose a butterfly in the center after Eclipsa’s signature spell in Star vs The Forces Of Evil. It took much reshaping to make sure our ¼” bit would cut out the wings with no issue.
Once that was all complete, I made a toolpath and simulated the cut. 18 something minutes. Back to revising the butterfly. Eventually I got it down to 11 minutes and 36 seconds (I changed 2 curves and it solved everything – Fusion is weird sometimes).
After weeks of suffering, time to cut all my pieces out! I hop on the CrawlBot, our CNC machine, and spend the next few hours sucking up the dust with the vacuum as our large buddy goes to town on the MDF.
Next comes the cleanup part: I break off the tabs that held my pieces in place with a hammer and chisel, and sand off the remaining nubs and excess parts.
A requirement was that the stool did have to be finished in some form or another, so I chose stain! I picked the color Worn Navy from the store, and began laying down coats. I was warned that MDF will absorb much of whatever I use. I didn’t have much of a problem with it.
For the spacers, I just threw them straight into the can, waited about a minute, and then took them out to finish absorbing and dry.
And for the actual stool pieces, 2 coats for the front and back and 1 for the sides was enough to fully coat. I used 4 coats for the sides that people would see/would be exposed the most.
After fully drying, I grabbed my nuts and rods and started layering: 4 nuts at the end of a rod, put them through a stool piece, add some spacers on top, and repeat the layer of stool and spacers until you run out of stool pieces. You don’t need spacers between the stool and the nuts on the ends.
I used the angle grinder to cut off the excess rod that I didn’t need. They were also sharp so I was worried that it could cut someone, so I rounded the edges off. It also turned my stain a different color by doing so, and I had to add a light layer of stain again.
And that’s a Campfire Stool for ya! I enjoyed myself making this and I learned much about CNC milling machines and their use of G-code.
