The Arrow of Light is the highest rank achieved in the BSA Cub Scout Program. It’s usually earned by boys in the 5th grade. Our pack had 9 boys earn the award this year. Most of them went ahead and crossed over to the troop to become Boy Scouts. It’s tradition to award a “career…
Tag: arrowoflight
Arrow of Light – Finishing Touches
I’ve spent a couple days finishing up the plaques. I’ll post again with some final pictures. The finishing touches have all been manual things including: I hand routed a corner on the plaques to dress up the edges. Sanded and stained Rubbed with Tung oil The arrows were masked with tape and striped in various…
Arrow of Light – Drilling
The last CNC operation we need to do is drilling. The arrows will be mounted in the large pocket and will be epoxied to two posts. The posts will be glued into holes drilled into the plaque. I drew two circles in HeeksCNC to represent where I wanted the holes drilled. Then I selected the…
Arrow of Light – Keyhole
To hang the plaques, I’m going to cut a keyhole on the back. This is done with a keyhole cutter. The cutting process works like this: The cutter does rapid movement to position itself over the hole location It plunges into the material to the desired depth. It moves forward toward the top of the…
Arrow of Light – Engraving
To personalize each plaque, I’m going to engrave the Pack information, the year, and the boy’s name. In HeeksCNC, engraving is just a profile operation with the ‘tool on side’ parameter set for ‘on’. That isn’t to say that engraving is easy. It’s not. At least it’s not easy to get decent results. The complexity…
Arrow of Light – Profiling
The corners are just a simple curve and the profile operation is similarly simple. Since I don’t want the cutter to travel all the way around the plaque but rather just cut the corners, I have to move those arcs and line segments into a new sketch. Then I select the sketch and add a…
Arrow of Light – Pockets
This is the most time consuming operation in the project. Each of the pockets must be cleared to a depth of 3mm. The geometry defining the pockets is all in a single sketch and a single pocket operation has been added. Ideally, the cutter would move forward as it descends into the material, either in…
Arrow of Light – Getting Started
O.K. It’s time to get this project rolling. I’ve already finished the design, now it’s time to turn it into some plaques. I’m going to be making nine plaques and each plaque is going to have numerous operations including Pocketing the holes Profiling the curved edges Engraving the names and other information Drilling the…