Winston, thanks for sharing the thought process and making this an interesting Sunday morning! Here’s to iterative design, and happy box-cutting. Cheers!!
Nice work! Ive also had success in CF with about .001 per tooth. Just starting out with my hobby CNC education, but I've learned a lot from your channel. I appreciate you discussing the design rationale and modeling, as well as prototype failures and lessons learned. Keep it up!
Another variation you could add to this use some sort of linerlock that is screwed into the back of the carbon fiber and sandwich the blade in between two slabs of CF. And have the notches for the blade on the front scale (opposite scale of the linerlock leaf spring) so that the linerlock pushes the blades into the notch and there is no risk of the blade falling out. You could also add a magnet onto the front scale for added support and eliminate any blade rattle. Use some nice stainless or even Ti Sex nuts (yes that's what they are called) to fasten the sides together without having to thread the screws into the CF which may strip eventually.
Nice work, Winston! Really enjoy your stuff! Your commentary detailing your process and project experience is especially enlightening! Thank you for the fantastic content!
For a first go at machining carbon laminate - you nailed it! The double-stick tape fixturing and those little burr cutters from McMaster are ideal for a quick and cheap setup. Mcmaster does sell three different tip geometries of those cutters and you picked the best one for pocket machining - with the two end flutes. The one with the pointy tip shape is great for slotting and will plunge neatly-ish. And thank you for taking the dust seriously - and urging everybody else to do it too!
Good thought. I think I would be likely to twist the blade while cutting and pop it free of the magnets. I was wondering how to get a grippy plastic sleeve around this design in a way that would let you put your thumb on the blade to slide it back and forth. I couldn’t come up with a way that didn’t involve adding to the frame.
Ketotic, I think heat-shrink with a hole cut through it would be excellent for the application, but it would be tricky to keep it from locking down the blade.
jcarletto27 - Nice idea - I don’t think it would necessarily secure the blade from popping out to the same extent but cutting a groove in the plastic coating where the blade will slide back and forth should help a bit. Cheers!
Spencer Paire - That’s a nice thought! An oval hole on one side. I can see how that would work and stay in place once it tightened up, and being careful you could avoid impeding the blade. Cheers mate!
And now you know why I go through great lengths to cut it under water and run my debris into a filtration system allowing me to dispose of the filter. I run into some issues with fixturing for the way I do things because I am not fixturing to a spoilboard but rather a stand off sort of affair. Dealing with flex in carbonfiber when dealing with thinner sheets can be an issue. A spoil board with carbon fiber directly fixed to it helps solve the problem. Rather than double sided tape I have seen a favored method of using painters tape on the spoil board and on the carbon fiber. Then stick the two together with CA glue and an activator. It seems like it will make for a more rigid fixturing and I am gonna try it with my submerged setup once I find a spoil board material that will be water resistant and lend itself to surfacing
@@WinstonMakes they have also used it for straight up aluminum fixturing. Painters tape on back of stock, painters tape onto work holding surface, CA glue to bond the two together. Winds up much thinner than the 3M double sided tape solutions and quite rigid.
@@dividingbyzerofpv6748 That's something different. Just about everybody and their grandma knows painters tape + CA glue (even Winston did a video comparing the strength), but the powder coating tape is a solid dark green PET tape, ie. aliexpress .com/item/32642698031.html (there's no amazon where I live).
Just about the only thing I've cut in the 18 months since I've owned my Shapeoko is carbon fiber. I'm cutting prototypes of my FPV drone frames. For what it is worth, I use some of the cheapest 2mm endmills I can find. I've tried several different brands and styles. You can find quite a few different 10-packs of endmills on Amazon, Banggood, and Ebay in the $8 to $12 range. I don't worry too much about how fast they wear out when they only cost about $1. I'm also not as good at this as you are. I'm bottle necked my design and testing time, so the Shapeoko is often dormant for a month or two at a time. I'm pretty good at forgetting something I learned a month ago, then doing something and snapping an endmill. I can snap $1 endmill all day long! At first, I was using endmills that looked like your fiberglass mill. I ran out of those, and I'm using random 2-flute and 4-flute endmills. I know that I notice a difference in the finish. They all start to get sloppy looking as they get dull, and they all get dull on me rather quickly! Keep up the good work Winston!
Hi Winston, I really like this design. I wonder whether you can optimise the magnets (or perhaps you have already done so but I didn't notice you mention it) by ensuring that they alternate poles. That way, the field will be stronger/denser through the steel of the blade and apply more holding force per magnet. You can further increase this by moving the magnets closer together, if the holding power against moments remains. The other thing I thought is whether you can use a magnet on a pivot in the hold/release mechanism. with the finger you pivot the magnet and it repels another magnet (there would be a pair) which is magnetically attached to the blade and not fixed in its recess. This would pop the blade out for retraction/extension. Then let go of the first magnet for it to rotate back into its default orientation and that pulls the blade back against the locking nubs. A nice feature, were this to work, might be that the magnets attached to the blade aligning with the trigger magnet would potentially align the blade with the locking nubs semi-automatically. Anyway, it loses something without a sketch and its only half thought through. But this is a great design exercise and I hope you do find the time to further your concepts.
I would machine another (thinner) top layer to act as a spring to keep the balde in place and super-glue it to either the bottom or end wall only (to get a opening/spring effect on the other ends). you could also machine the bottom layer to get a similar spring locking effect you can find in the 3d printed ones, and couple this with a fixed/glued top capping layer.
Great stuff! Always been curious about machining carbon fiber, good to know those cheaper burr end mills can work well. I'm assuming there's not much difference between climb and conventional?
pretty cool, but the Milwaukee Fastback is the gold standard for utility knifes. I prefer Milwaukee 48-22-1500 Fastback model but the 1906 is only slightly different.
If you want to go smaller: Try to go with scalpel blades, Nr. 11 and Nr. 25 should be a nice blade design for utility. Usually they are a bit longer for the holding mechanism, but Bayha have some really nice ones with shorter holding mechanism.
It’s interesting that Winston’s concept arouse around the blade. You indeed have a point, that if you want it to be small an light you could start with smaller blades. For myself, I find that when something is too small and light, I tend to “lose” it in my pockets. Also, I need sufficient weight and enough grip surface to maintain positive control. I was using an old fashioned exacto knife the size of a thin pen to open packages for a bit but found myself grabbing a larger box cutter because it was just more secure in my hand. I am sure though that you would find a market for ultra light and compact box cutter designs - maybe a “gentleman’s carry” version, if you will!
I actually have a box cutter design I've been prototyping, if you're interested in checking it out, I'd be happy to send some files! It's based on the stanley mechanism, so the idea is the end user would just buy a stanley knife, or use the mechanism they already have. It's shorter and thinner, and has room for extra blades as well. Essentially it's just optimised
It’s a good question. I pondered the same and found myself wondering what the machined cut where the blade rests would look like under a microscope. I don’t think that the wear would be excessive. However, it would be unfortunate to carry around a razor blade and, on the occasion you really needed it to be sharp, find it was dull along its whole length even though you had not used it that often.
The way I see it, if a carbide endmill can spend an hour or two ripping through carbon fiber, a carbide-edged utility blade you're going to discard in a couple weeks will be fine.
@@ColdHawk to be fair though, it wouldn't have gotten so dull that you couldn't easily resharpen it in a few seconds on the bottom rim of a coffee mug or dinner plate, or on the rim of a car window.
Nice. What are the specs of that carbon fiber sheet? (I don't know anything about CF but I assume there are different types.) I almost have my MPCNC dust collection set up so I might have to try something like this soon.
This is what I bought: amzn.to/31i1ZX5 Plain weave, nothing really special about it. There are different weave patterns, and for aerospace stuff they can get pretty proprietary with their resin formulations.
Looks great! I have only CNC cut carbon fiber once so far for an engineering project but it turned out surprisingly well. Would you mind posting a link to the Amana speeds and feeds that you showed in the video?
If you added a dovetail on the side where the edge is it would make the whole thing more secure, easier to use, and you would need fewer magnets. The edge would be safer side the dovetail, which also gives the blade a pivot to open and close the knife.
The idea was more that this would be an mild improvement over a naked utility blade and something you could carry safely in your pocket. If you need to put any serious force behind a cut, probably should be making/buying a more robust design with the blade fully captured. Revision 3 will have a small dovetail at the bottom to capture the cutting edge and prevent it from kicking out.
@@WinstonMakes Make sure you secure the blade from movement in all axis when the blade is extended for use. That suggestion is difficult, if not impossible to meet while retaining some of the design features you have currently employed. I like your channel. Been watching for a long while. I enjoy the content and found it very helpful when learning Fusion 360.
Is there a desktop cnc that can cut steel? I want to make a knife from the steel blade to whatever material I use for the handle. I don't want to spend for an industrial cnc machine since I'm a weekend hobbyist
Did you mean the thin flexible magnets that have things printed on them, like the number for your vet, a realtor, or plumber? I am not sure that anything but a strong rare earth magnet would hold the blade sufficiently. One thought I had about Winston’s final design was that if one twisted excessively while cutting the blade might pop out of the frame if one wasn’t holding it firmly enough with the thumb. I would want the strongest magnets I could find that would fit into the frame.
@@ColdHawk Like a halbach array, they have more force close to them, but don't go very far, great for a flat piece of metal, you don't want some super powerful magnet just in your pocket.
Man solution to favorite knife not fitting in a pocket: design a new knife. Woman solution to favorite knife not fitting in a pocket: sew a new pocket. I almost did a spit take when I saw the 40 foot long "most direct way possible" connection to the vacuum.
Im confused, US make everything harder just so we can have everything every tool every stuff we 'need' to make simple thing that make our job easier incase we need one for making simple stuff on the hardest way and it still going on. I missed that day when we work with simple tool, simple life, no fancy stuff like gloves, mask, other stupid things and yet life is still going on nicely
What a cop out I want to see a carbon fiber blade. How much did this trinket bs knife cost? Crap like this is why this country is screwed. Oh and how do you dispose of the waste?
This is great! Very neat, congrats!
Winston, thanks for sharing the thought process and making this an interesting Sunday morning! Here’s to iterative design, and happy box-cutting. Cheers!!
Winston, this was great! Nice "chip" evacuation and great surface finish on the end part!
Nice work! Ive also had success in CF with about .001 per tooth. Just starting out with my hobby CNC education, but I've learned a lot from your channel. I appreciate you discussing the design rationale and modeling, as well as prototype failures and lessons learned. Keep it up!
Another variation you could add to this use some sort of linerlock that is screwed into the back of the carbon fiber and sandwich the blade in between two slabs of CF. And have the notches for the blade on the front scale (opposite scale of the linerlock leaf spring) so that the linerlock pushes the blades into the notch and there is no risk of the blade falling out. You could also add a magnet onto the front scale for added support and eliminate any blade rattle. Use some nice stainless or even Ti Sex nuts (yes that's what they are called) to fasten the sides together without having to thread the screws into the CF which may strip eventually.
Underrated youtube channel
Nice work, Winston!
Really enjoy your stuff! Your commentary detailing your process and project experience is especially enlightening!
Thank you for the fantastic content!
Great video. Cool project, didn't know carbon fiber had so many issues. Mahalo for sharing!🐒
For a first go at machining carbon laminate - you nailed it! The double-stick tape fixturing and those little burr cutters from McMaster are ideal for a quick and cheap setup. Mcmaster does sell three different tip geometries of those cutters and you picked the best one for pocket machining - with the two end flutes. The one with the pointy tip shape is great for slotting and will plunge neatly-ish.
And thank you for taking the dust seriously - and urging everybody else to do it too!
This needs a thin, see-through, soft rubber hose around it ...
Keeps the blade in.
Shields from dust and knocks.
Secures your grip.
Good thought. I think I would be likely to twist the blade while cutting and pop it free of the magnets. I was wondering how to get a grippy plastic sleeve around this design in a way that would let you put your thumb on the blade to slide it back and forth. I couldn’t come up with a way that didn’t involve adding to the frame.
Ketotic, I think heat-shrink with a hole cut through it would be excellent for the application, but it would be tricky to keep it from locking down the blade.
Cut a mockup out of slippery plastic then coat it in dip-it plastic dip for a custom fit grip
jcarletto27 - Nice idea - I don’t think it would necessarily secure the blade from popping out to the same extent but cutting a groove in the plastic coating where the blade will slide back and forth should help a bit. Cheers!
Spencer Paire - That’s a nice thought! An oval hole on one side. I can see how that would work and stay in place once it tightened up, and being careful you could avoid impeding the blade. Cheers mate!
And now you know why I go through great lengths to cut it under water and run my debris into a filtration system allowing me to dispose of the filter. I run into some issues with fixturing for the way I do things because I am not fixturing to a spoilboard but rather a stand off sort of affair. Dealing with flex in carbonfiber when dealing with thinner sheets can be an issue. A spoil board with carbon fiber directly fixed to it helps solve the problem.
Rather than double sided tape I have seen a favored method of using painters tape on the spoil board and on the carbon fiber. Then stick the two together with CA glue and an activator. It seems like it will make for a more rigid fixturing and I am gonna try it with my submerged setup once I find a spoil board material that will be water resistant and lend itself to surfacing
I believe Saunders - NYC CNC has a recommendation to use a type of masking tape for powder coating, says it resists moisture and coolant better.
@@WinstonMakes they have also used it for straight up aluminum fixturing. Painters tape on back of stock, painters tape onto work holding surface, CA glue to bond the two together. Winds up much thinner than the 3M double sided tape solutions and quite rigid.
@@dividingbyzerofpv6748 That's something different. Just about everybody and their grandma knows painters tape + CA glue (even Winston did a video comparing the strength), but the powder coating tape is a solid dark green PET tape, ie. aliexpress .com/item/32642698031.html (there's no amazon where I live).
@@jirij thanks. Will take a look.
What about delrin plastic sheet for a spoilboard? It machines easily without melting/gumming up end mills
Thanks for the video! I also have some carbon fiber that I wanted to work with on the CNC and this is a great resource. The knife looks awesome, too.
Just about the only thing I've cut in the 18 months since I've owned my Shapeoko is carbon fiber. I'm cutting prototypes of my FPV drone frames.
For what it is worth, I use some of the cheapest 2mm endmills I can find. I've tried several different brands and styles. You can find quite a few different 10-packs of endmills on Amazon, Banggood, and Ebay in the $8 to $12 range. I don't worry too much about how fast they wear out when they only cost about $1.
I'm also not as good at this as you are. I'm bottle necked my design and testing time, so the Shapeoko is often dormant for a month or two at a time. I'm pretty good at forgetting something I learned a month ago, then doing something and snapping an endmill. I can snap $1 endmill all day long!
At first, I was using endmills that looked like your fiberglass mill. I ran out of those, and I'm using random 2-flute and 4-flute endmills. I know that I notice a difference in the finish. They all start to get sloppy looking as they get dull, and they all get dull on me rather quickly!
Keep up the good work Winston!
Hi Winston, I really like this design. I wonder whether you can optimise the magnets (or perhaps you have already done so but I didn't notice you mention it) by ensuring that they alternate poles. That way, the field will be stronger/denser through the steel of the blade and apply more holding force per magnet. You can further increase this by moving the magnets closer together, if the holding power against moments remains. The other thing I thought is whether you can use a magnet on a pivot in the hold/release mechanism. with the finger you pivot the magnet and it repels another magnet (there would be a pair) which is magnetically attached to the blade and not fixed in its recess. This would pop the blade out for retraction/extension. Then let go of the first magnet for it to rotate back into its default orientation and that pulls the blade back against the locking nubs. A nice feature, were this to work, might be that the magnets attached to the blade aligning with the trigger magnet would potentially align the blade with the locking nubs semi-automatically. Anyway, it loses something without a sketch and its only half thought through. But this is a great design exercise and I hope you do find the time to further your concepts.
Beat me to it. just received my carbon fiber plate to make similar stuff. nice idea on the magnet !
We want more!!!
I would machine another (thinner) top layer to act as a spring to keep the balde in place and super-glue it to either the bottom or end wall only (to get a opening/spring effect on the other ends).
you could also machine the bottom layer to get a similar spring locking effect you can find in the 3d printed ones, and couple this with a fixed/glued top capping layer.
Great work.
Thank you for sharing!
Using this is a recipe for a long trip to the e.r. for major stitches. Too many people keep trying to reinvent the wheel...
Nice design!
Everyone wants a one handed operation of a knife . That is a feature that is not on the top of many carrier’s list .
just a tiny little strip of CF to prevent the edge of the blade from sliding across your fingers. Living on the edge...
Nicely done. Would be interested to hear if you've tried any 3D machining of carbon fiber using carbide ball nose bits, and takeaways if so. Thanks.
Great stuff! Always been curious about machining carbon fiber, good to know those cheaper burr end mills can work well. I'm assuming there's not much difference between climb and conventional?
pretty cool, but the Milwaukee Fastback is the gold standard for utility knifes. I prefer
Milwaukee 48-22-1500 Fastback model
but the 1906 is only slightly different.
If you want to go smaller: Try to go with scalpel blades, Nr. 11 and Nr. 25 should be a nice blade design for utility. Usually they are a bit longer for the holding mechanism, but Bayha have some really nice ones with shorter holding mechanism.
It’s interesting that Winston’s concept arouse around the blade. You indeed have a point, that if you want it to be small an light you could start with smaller blades. For myself, I find that when something is too small and light, I tend to “lose” it in my pockets. Also, I need sufficient weight and enough grip surface to maintain positive control. I was using an old fashioned exacto knife the size of a thin pen to open packages for a bit but found myself grabbing a larger box cutter because it was just more secure in my hand. I am sure though that you would find a market for ultra light and compact box cutter designs - maybe a “gentleman’s carry” version, if you will!
the ebay/amazon specials cutters are like the same that are used in millions to route out glassfiber PCBs in factories
I actually have a box cutter design I've been prototyping, if you're interested in checking it out, I'd be happy to send some files! It's based on the stanley mechanism, so the idea is the end user would just buy a stanley knife, or use the mechanism they already have. It's shorter and thinner, and has room for extra blades as well. Essentially it's just optimised
I wonder if the abrasive nature of the CF dulls the utility blade when it is slid between the open and locked positions?
No more or less than any of the other "EDC Stanley knives" that operate with a similar function.
It’s a good question. I pondered the same and found myself wondering what the machined cut where the blade rests would look like under a microscope. I don’t think that the wear would be excessive. However, it would be unfortunate to carry around a razor blade and, on the occasion you really needed it to be sharp, find it was dull along its whole length even though you had not used it that often.
The way I see it, if a carbide endmill can spend an hour or two ripping through carbon fiber, a carbide-edged utility blade you're going to discard in a couple weeks will be fine.
@@ColdHawk to be fair though, it wouldn't have gotten so dull that you couldn't easily resharpen it in a few seconds on the bottom rim of a coffee mug or dinner plate, or on the rim of a car window.
CountDoucheula - Ah, you are a pragmatist my friend!!
Nice. What are the specs of that carbon fiber sheet? (I don't know anything about CF but I assume there are different types.) I almost have my MPCNC dust collection set up so I might have to try something like this soon.
This is what I bought: amzn.to/31i1ZX5
Plain weave, nothing really special about it. There are different weave patterns, and for aerospace stuff they can get pretty proprietary with their resin formulations.
@@WinstonMakes Thanks for the link. Will be buying a sheet soon to experiment (assuming my dust collection seems up to the task once it is finished).
What is with the expensive box cutters? As opposed to a clipped pocket knife. Seems like the main appeal is minimalism.
haha i also try to put my fusion 360 in "dark mode" for my eyes only to find that the toolbars are are still bright white
Looks great! I have only CNC cut carbon fiber once so far for an engineering project but it turned out surprisingly well. Would you mind posting a link to the Amana speeds and feeds that you showed in the video?
If you added a dovetail on the side where the edge is it would make the whole thing more secure, easier to use, and you would need fewer magnets. The edge would be safer side the dovetail, which also gives the blade a pivot to open and close the knife.
I watched the whole thing. "Hehe That's cool!!"
Reminds me alot of my TUKK XL by tactical keychains, very similar in functionality.
Except the TUKK line is way cooler haha. Tactical Keychains does awesome work.
why don't you just use a Stanley 0-10-598 Safety Folding Utility Knife?
This is a dangerous design that lacks a positive locking mechanism. Under load, the blade could pop out and give you a nasty laceration.
The idea was more that this would be an mild improvement over a naked utility blade and something you could carry safely in your pocket. If you need to put any serious force behind a cut, probably should be making/buying a more robust design with the blade fully captured. Revision 3 will have a small dovetail at the bottom to capture the cutting edge and prevent it from kicking out.
@@WinstonMakes Make sure you secure the blade from movement in all axis when the blade is extended for use. That suggestion is difficult, if not impossible to meet while retaining some of the design features you have currently employed. I like your channel. Been watching for a long while. I enjoy the content and found it very helpful when learning Fusion 360.
A CWT Herring Blade style design would address all the issues while preserving the functionality.
Is there a desktop cnc that can cut steel? I want to make a knife from the steel blade to whatever material I use for the handle. I don't want to spend for an industrial cnc machine since I'm a weekend hobbyist
whats this dust shoe youve got? awesome
Would a fridge magnet type arrangement keep the blade better? It seems like a lot of magnet there for something that's meant to be light.
Did you mean the thin flexible magnets that have things printed on them, like the number for your vet, a realtor, or plumber? I am not sure that anything but a strong rare earth magnet would hold the blade sufficiently. One thought I had about Winston’s final design was that if one twisted excessively while cutting the blade might pop out of the frame if one wasn’t holding it firmly enough with the thumb. I would want the strongest magnets I could find that would fit into the frame.
@@ColdHawk Like a halbach array, they have more force close to them, but don't go very far, great for a flat piece of metal, you don't want some super powerful magnet just in your pocket.
you consider selling the knife carbon bit?
There is only one way to mill it.....under water , then u just pump it out ....no need for evapourated drops of dust etc :)
Man solution to favorite knife not fitting in a pocket: design a new knife. Woman solution to favorite knife not fitting in a pocket: sew a new pocket.
I almost did a spit take when I saw the 40 foot long "most direct way possible" connection to the vacuum.
Ahh, my wife’s solution would be go out and buy a bigger purse.
Has Winston ever reviewed an omio router in the past?
what was that factory-made knife in the beginning?
Haven't seen you in a while?
I can make a design like that using kydex👍👍👍
Still alive?
*I found one in a basement*
shut up and take my money!
Too fancy too fast??? no such thing!
Im confused, US make everything harder just so we can have everything every tool every stuff we 'need' to make simple thing that make our job easier incase we need one for making simple stuff on the hardest way and it still going on. I missed that day when we work with simple tool, simple life, no fancy stuff like gloves, mask, other stupid things and yet life is still going on nicely
Well wasn’t that interesting ! 👎
What a cop out I want to see a carbon fiber blade. How much did this trinket bs knife cost? Crap like this is why this country is screwed. Oh and how do you dispose of the waste?
Gave you a thumbs down for gender prejudice!