Customer Story - Garcia Woodworks

Recently we had the pleasure of speaking with one of the first customers of the ShopBot Buddy 48 machine, Oscar Garcia. We asked him about his choice of this machine, what he thinks about it and to describe some of the projects he has made with it so far.

ShopBot: Tell us a little about your business? Oscar Garcia:   Garcia Woodworks is really nothing but a hobby.  I have a regular job but maybe down the road my hobby might turn into something else, we’ll see.  Most of the things I make with my ShopBot are gifts or to embellish woodworking projects I create for the household.  Woodworking has been a passion of mine for about 7 years now and every week I’m learning new techniques to help me along in this wonderfully creative hobby.

I currently use a Shopbot BT48 “Buddy” for all my work. I like the fact it is compact but has tons of potential and even better for the future, expandability.  My previous machine was also a Shopbot; a PRT Benchtop.  I use a Porter Cable T7518 router which really is a work horse. I’ve cut hardwoods, aluminium, brass and plastics and never had an issue with it. This is a great router for the beginner if you want to get started into CNC machining but at some point in the future it would be nice to switch to a quieter spindle.

As for software I mainly use Vectric’s V-Carve Pro and Cut3D (equivalent to PartWorks and PartWorks3D).  Both programs are awesome and get better with every update. They are ideal for the beginner and have many features for the experienced user. I also use a lot of Vector Art 3D clipart in my projects.

Oscar Garcia:  
My first machine was great but had a limited work envelope and older technology for the motors and control. So when I first saw the Buddy machine I thought it would be a good replacement but was still concerned about the size, even though I keep it in my garage, so have limited space, I always wanted to have the potential to cut larger parts. They had the BT32 there at the Austin Maker Faire with talk of the BT48 being in development, I knew this was what I had been waiting for. So I immediately sold my older machine through the ShopBot user forum. Then I pre-ordered the Buddy48 and waited a couple of months for them to actually start shipping the machines. Being without a machine was stressful but I knew the one coming would be worth the wait! When it arrived I loved the fact it came pre-assembled so was pretty much ready to cut out the box. Given this was one of the first machines I had very few issues getting it set up although there were a couple of glitches which were solved by spending a half hour on the phone with a ShopBot technician who helped me get it dialled in just right.

Since I got it the machine has really been put through its paces as Vector Art 3D had contracted me to make them a bunch of samples for their trade show booth for the IWF show. This meant several weeks of continuously cutting a really varied selection of projects every day in large variety of woods. The machine has performed flawlessly on all these are I was really pleased with how they all came out, so was the customer which was the main thing. With this initial run of jobs I have only just had the chance to start setting up my PowerStick and out-feed system but already have a long mantel job which I am working on to test that out in the next few days. All in all I have been extremely happy with both my ShopBot Tools and also anytime I have had to contact them whether for support or to buy something the customer service has been very good.

ShopBot:
Please describe some of your favorite projects you have worked on?

Oscar Garcia:   
Recently I have been making a lot of interesting projects, really testing out the potential for what I can do. This has been a mix of making some pieces for the house and as I mentioned I was also contracted by Vector Art 3D to make a lot of different samples for the IWF trade show. This was a good project for proving just how many different things I can do with my machine and really ran it’s through its paces even though it was very new.

Quilt Rack A project I made a while back on my original ShopBot was a quilt rack for my wife for a Valentines gift. This was made of Oak and I used the router to cut both sides of the side pieces to cut the outside shape, decorative groove, carve the 3D area and drill the dowel holes. When I put it together it all fitted really well and was dead on square. She was very pleased with the gift and it always helps to make the machine more popular if it can help with gifts and honey-do’s.

Shell Box This was a interesting project made from Cherry. Using the Vector Art 3D scallop shell I carved the top of the box. Then I used the eps outline from the website to carve the glued up layers to make the main box. I even used the router to cut a groove in the back to make a place for the hinge. It ended up looking really slick but was quite easy to make. Final part was around 7 inches wide and almost 3 inches deep.

3 Panel Forest Scene James Booth and I worked on this, he divided the Vector Art 3D waterfall scene into 3 separate pieces and then we designed a frame to go around them and hold them in place. The Scene parts were carved in mahogany and the border in oak. The finished part is around 26 inches wide and the deepest part of the carvings were almost 1.25 inches deep which is what gives it such a contrast of jumping out from the frame. This is a nice effect and a good way to not need to glue up such a large single flat panel of wood when making a large display.

Vector Art 3D Samples
Really it’s hard to describe all the samples I made for Vector Art 3D. They have ranged in size form intricate flourishes only 5 inches wide to large 24 inch panels showing a selection of some of their Collections. A small selection of these parts were the Oval Stage Coach dished sample, a variety of 8” corner blocks, an ornamental cartouche, acanthus leaves, a cherub, tragedy and comedy masks and many others! The majority of these were made using Cherry, Oak or Maple wood. The tooling varied from v-bits for the text through a variety of sizes of ball-nose cutters for the 3D carvings. The best part is that there was not a single problem with any of them and the machine did exactly as it was asked regardless of material, size or tooling.