Star Wars Aztec calendar

I have wanted to cut something like this for a while and this looked like a good project to test in Carveco. I knew the cutting would be fairly straight forward but was unsure how long it would take because I haven't calibrated this type of cutting in Carveco. The material is 1/2" MDF and it took 40 minutes cutting at 200 ipm, one pass with a 60° 5/8" diameter V bit, 18k rpm, 0.03125" stepover, and cut depth of 3/16". Except for the perimeter cuts it rarely got close to 200 ipm. I probably could have set it to 400 ipm and the results would have been about the same.

My goal was to make it look old, somewhat weathered, like it had been discovered in the sand on Tatooine and had been there for years. In other words, 'pristine and perfect' was NOT my goal. :wink:

The finishing steps were as follows - 1) two fairly heavy coats of Nitrocellulose sanding sealer, 2) one really heavy coat of Rust Oleum brown Hammered paint, 3) brushed thinned black acrylic into the recessed areas and wiped it off, 4) placed in oven at 170° for a couple of minutes and turned off but allowed the piece to stay in until the oven cooled, and 5) one good coat of Nitrocellulose semi-gloss followed quickly by a lighter dusting coat.

The lacquer caused the underlying coats to crackle a bit and gave me the desired look, at least I am pleased with the way it came out.

On the CNC -

Two coats of sealer -

Brown Hammered paint -

After black acrylic and wiped off -

Aged look -

Aged look close up -

Enjoy!
David