Preface

Five years ago, we designed and shared a line of CNC-fabricated furniture with the intention of encouraging people to become digital makers. Since then, over 10,000 downloads later, hundreds of makers from around the world have locally fabricated their own versions. We believe design for CNC can be more than just a new way of making things. It’s a new paradigm for manufacturing that has positive impacts for local economies and the environment. Whether you’re a designer, a fabricator, or a complete novice, we wrote this book to give everyone the power to design for CNC.

This book teaches design and fabrication fundamentals through the making of useful, meaningful, modern pieces of furniture. We introduce practical techniques of working with—and designing for—CNC tools within the context of making furniture. Every project in this book offers a unique lesson and yields a different furniture piece. By completing the entire collection of projects in this book, you’ll be able to furnish almost any space, from a small apartment to a house, classroom, workshop, or even a tech startup office.

Understanding the scarcity of both classroom and leisure time, the book begins with projects that are achievable within a weekend. In later chapters, you’ll find more challenging multi-weekend projects to make as you expand your knowledge, technique, and confidence in digital fabrication.

What Is AtFAB?

AtFAB is a line of customizable furniture, designed to be downloaded as a digital file, and then “FABricated At” any location by anyone. AtFAB consists of a collection of chairs, tables, shelving, beds, and other pieces. Every piece is comprised entirely of flat, interlocking parts, which are cut with a CNC tool. The collection shares a common language of precise, digital joinery, structural assemblies, and overall volumetric, proportioned shapes.

The concepts behind AtFAB are rooted in our early ambition to design everyday objects for a networked, digital manufacturing process. We sought to design furniture that a distant fabricator could produce with readily available sheet materials and intuitively assemble with nothing more than off-the-shelf hardware.

AtFAB’s underlying ideas are also rooted in our deep aspiration to connect and share through design and making. Ever since inviting a few dozen friends to download our earliest furniture files, we’ve been delighted to connect with an ever-growing, global network of designers, makers, and fabricators. As so many have downloaded, customized, and locally fabricated AtFAB in makerspaces, fab labs, classrooms, and garages around the world, they have demonstrated a powerful manufacturing model.

For us, this book is an opportunity to expand the circle further, by sharing the knowledge that we developed in designing and making AtFAB. We hope to expand this creative, industrious community into a potent force that has the potential to reshape an industry.

For all makers, we believe AtFAB demonstrates an approach to design that anyone can adapt to their own projects. This book will walk you through the making of eight AtFAB furniture pieces, showing how design unlocks digital fabrication’s full potential. As you make each project, you’ll discover how AtFAB designs are source code for infinite furniture possibilities. You’ll find opportunities for customizing, hacking, and even recombining elements into new designs to make and to share.

What Is CNC?

At its most basic, a computer-numerically controlled (CNC) machine moves a cutting, etching, or deposition tool on the end of its computer-controlled arm. The computer reads a digital file containing 2D or 3D coordinates, and tells the machine where to move the tool to perform subtractive functions like cutting, carving, or etching, or additive ones like 3D printing.

The principles are essentially the same on a CNC router that cuts and etches sheets of plywood, or on a sophisticated, infinite-axis CNC robotic arm that cuts and fuses complex aerospace parts. In both cases, the computer is following the coordinates and driving the end of a tool in space to manipulate a physical material.

What Is Digital Fabrication?

Digital fabrication is the act of designing on a computer with the intent of fabricating that design on a specific computer-controlled machine. While digital fabrication is the process of joining digital design with computer-controlled tools, the practice of digital fabrication feels more like an iterative dance between software and hardware with design as the choreographer. The process typically involves creating a digitally designed model, simulating its fabrication in software, and then physically fabricating that model with a CNC machine.

This agility to move between the virtual and the physical allows the practice of digital fabrication to be an iterative cycle through concept to prototype. CNC machines and software allow you to analyze and evaluate your initial prototype, improve the digital model, fabricate the next iteration, and repeat the process, until the object has all of the necessary functions and characteristics. Modeling, simulation, iteration, and prototyping naturally invite design into the process of making things with digital tools.

Who Is this book for?

This book is for those who learn best by doing projects: makers of all skill levels who want to explore digital fabrication. It’s also for those who are seeking a self-sufficient, affordable, greener alternative to buying imported furnishings from a big box retailer.

When makers around the world began downloading AtFAB furniture files, we were intrigued by how diverse a cross-section of people they were: designers, software developers, makers, teachers, students, professional fabricators, woodworkers, and many more. We want to encourage everyone from this broad, curious audience to jump in and make something big.

Designers

If you’re comfortable with digital design basics and want to move beyond what’s on the screen but are completely new to fabrication, this book will give you a basic foundation in CNC machining and provide guidance on how to design for fabrication.

Fabricators

If you’re quite familiar with building physical objects, but you’re eager to bring your own ideas to life, this book will help you to think like a designer. You’ll gain insight into the inclusive, comprehensive thinking of a designer, and the practical integration of design and fabrication.

Teachers

While this book intentionally serves a wide audience, we tailored the projects and material to serve particular educational contexts and objectives. This book is structured to serve the STEAM (Science, Technology, Electronics, Art, Math) classroom and provides a curriculum of projects and fundamentals for teachers and instructors to follow. Beginner students can dive directly into projects that focus on applied design and CNC fundamentals, while advanced students can employ different methods of design modifications and experiment with more complex techniques. This book enables instructors to teach the design thinking, applied engineering, and math skills required to support innovation and entrepreneurship through advanced manufacturing.

Entrepreneurs

This book is also for advanced makers, designers, or professionals with ideas about things they want to make, and an understanding of the power that is at their fingertips. We know many accomplished designers and woodworkers who want to expand their knowledge of digital fabrication. We have also met established digital fabricators who would like to explore design more intensively. With a CNC router and internet access, anyone can have manufacturing capabilities and a global presence. This has the power to transform local economies, connect people over great distances through shared making, and radically change the way we make, buy, and sell goods.

What Can You Do?

Collectively, the projects featured in this book present the fundamentals of the digital-to-physical workflow, an applied context for design thinking, and the methods for mastering essential CNC fabrication techniques. After successfully completing several projects in this book, you will have a solid understanding of CNC fundamentals. Through these projects, we also present AtFAB’s underlying logic, in an effort to reveal the considerations that factored into our decision-making process as we developed our designs. We want this combination of fundamentals and process to give you an understanding of how to propose, prototype, fabricate, and share your own designs.

How This Book Is Organized

While this is a project-focused book, we also introduce design principle and delve into essential concepts for using software, hardware, and physical materials. The book begins with an overview of CNC joinery concepts, techniques, and software exercises, enabling you to acquire essential knowledge even if you don’t have immediate access to a full-size CNC router. A series of eight AtFAB furniture projects follow, starting small and simple and advancing in technique, scale, and complexity.

Designing for Fabrication

Part I begins with an explanation of the larger implications of design for CNC, and how it can scale to offer an efficient, environmentally sound, and economically democratic model for manufacturing. It introduces the broad concepts of designing for CNC through the explanation of AtFAB’s development from a joinery detail into a line of furniture. This part culminates with two CAD exercises: the first exercise (Chapter 3) introduces software techniques for working in three and two dimensions in order to properly set up a digital fabrication workflow. The second (Chapter 4) takes you through the process of designing a three-dimensional piece of furniture made of flat parts.

Virtual Meets Physical

Part II offers essential knowledge for achieving digital craftsmanship, as you transition from the virtual CAD model to an actual physical object. It starts with an introduction on materials and techniques for reconciling the perfection of a digital model with the inherent variability of natural materials. It follows with Chapter 6, which offers details about the CNC router itself and the principles of proper machining.

Chapter 7 walks you through an exercise that begins with setting up a digital file for CNC fabrication and leads into two introductory CNC projects. All exercises up to this point can be accomplished without access to a CNC router.

The AtFAB Stool and Coffee Table projects are modest, simple projects that take you through the CNC fabrication process from start to finish. Each goes in depth about the steps, as well as the things that could possibly go wrong during each stage. These projects serve as a reference to consult as you pursue projects later in the book, and later on your own.

Projects

Six furniture projects follow, with each project building on the previous one and introducing new techniques and knowledge. Organized into three parts, the projects center around common themes.

Part III covers intermediate fabrication techniques, as well as several methods for modifying a design in CAD software. The 5- to 30-Minute Chair (Chapter 10) and the 90-Minute Lounge Chair (Chapter 11) projects each walk you through tailoring a design by making either small, two-dimensional detail adjustments, or much more significant three-dimensional alterations.

Part IV introduces the principles of parametric transformations and the incredible power of being able to customize the size and shape of a design. After an overview of parametric design (Chapter 12), we’ll move on to the One-to-Several Table (Chapter 13) and Open Storage Cabinet (Chapter 14) projects, which are larger in scale and demand a more complex mix of techniques. They are also both accompanied by a downloadable customization applet where you can tailor the dimensions of a design to your own specs.

Part V focuses on moving parts and large structures. The Poke Credenza project (Chapter 15) shows how to make complex joinery that produces integral sliding doors. The book concludes with the Cellular Screen project (Chapter 16), which introduces the techniques required for handling multi-sheet projects. Perhaps this would be a jumping-off point for a maker-pro.

Resources

Once you have gained confidence in the skills, techniques, and knowledge offered throughout, the book concludes with a convenient reference guide for your future projects.

What We Left Out

This book is an introduction to the fundamentals and techniques for designing in two and three dimensions, with the aim of fabricating furniture projects with large format CNC routers. This book also serves as a jumping-off point for further explorations in CNC machining, design, materials, and software workflows.

As a comprehensive introduction, this book is not an exhaustive or exclusive resource on CAD or CAM software, CNC routers, CNC machining, CNC joinery, or woodworking techniques. Notably absent topics are 2.5D and 3D machining. All of the projects in this book are constructed from flat parts that are cut using 2D machining methods. 3D machining is significantly more complex than 2D, typically requiring a different workflow and often a separate CAM program and more advanced modeling software. Because 3D contouring is a much larger territory for exploration, we chose to focus on CNC fundamentals and perfecting digital craft through 2D machining.

In addition, this book teaches practical design thinking and digital fabrication concepts. It’s by no means a substitute for an intensive design education, but seeks to introduce design through this applied context.

This book does not provide comprehensive software tutorials. Designing for CNC can be done in many different software packages, with menus and controls that can change radically with each upgrade. In this book, we provide a process and general guidelines, and link to external resources when appropiate.

How to Use This Book

The files for every exercise and project in this book are available from the book’s website.

3D Design Files

The AtFAB furniture collection was designed in SketchUp and the 3D files are provided in SketchUp’s .skp format. Each 3D file contains a three-dimensional model, as well as 2D part profiles that are ready for CAM import and CNC fabrication setup.

Chapter 3 explains the process of producing a similar file, walking you through the steps of flattening a 3D model and laying it out in preparation for CNC fabrication.

2D Cut Files

If you are not using SketchUp, we provide two-dimensional CNC cut layouts in DXF file formats. That way, whatever your CNC software toolchain, you’ll avoid messy file conversion issues.

SketchUp

You’ll need to download and install SketchUp if you want to complete the design exercises in this book exactly as depicted. At the time of this writing, SketchUp Pro is available for a month-long trial period and SketchUp Make is available for free.

This book doesn’t provide an introduction to SketchUp basics; it only covers features and controls relevant to the design exercises. We feel that SketchUp is very easy to learn, but to avoid frustration, it’s best to get acquainted with it first. If SketchUp is new to you, we highly recommend reviewing the SketchUp website’s learning section before starting this book’s design exercises.

SketchUp files are only backward compatible to the version used to create the file. This book’s project files were created in SketchUp 2015, so you’ll need SketchUp 2015 or greater to open them.

VCarve Pro

This book uses Vectric’s VCarve Pro v8 to set up files for CNC fabrication. You can download a trial version at http://www.vectric.com/products/vcarve.htm.

VCarve Pro smoothly imports SketchUp files and easily exports toolpaths to a ShopBot CNC router. While VCarve Pro has CAD features, we prefer using SketchUp for all CAD operations. The exercises in this book walk you through VCarve’s key steps in setting up a file for fabrication. We recommend that you also review VCarve’s learning resources at http://support.vectric.com/training-material.

Conventions Used in This Book

Example P-1.

Italic Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, and file extensions.

This element indicates a warning or caution.

This element provides a tip.

This element signifies a suggestion, or general note.

Units of Measure

Units are expressed in feet and inches with metric units in parentheses.

Software and Hardware

We reference CAD software, CAM software, and CNC tools that we actually used to test and produce the projects presented in this book. We used SketchUp Pro 2015 for Mac to model the furniture and VCarve Pro to generate the G-Code. We fabricated all projects with a ShopBot PRS Alpha CNC Router that runs ShopBot v3. The renders that precede each section are produced by the Maxwell Render plug-in for SketchUp. We have worked with a variety of software and machines over the years. We chose these particular platforms and tools for this book because they are generally the most accessible, offer the best quality for cost, and enable the most streamlined workflow at this moment.

We’ll discuss many CAD and CAM options in Chapter 6 and try to outline their strengths and weaknesses. Throughout the book, we put most of the focus on major functions and principles that should be recognizable, regardless of your chosen platform or tools. While the field of digital fabrication is vast, we focus on CNC routers, furniture design, and plywood sheet material.

Using Digital Design Files

File Downloads

All of the 3D models, test pieces, parametric applets, and cut files for the projects in this book are available for download and modification at this book’s website.

This book is here to help you learn and grow as a designer and digital fabricator. In general, you may use the cut files, drawings, and linked downloadable digital furniture files from this book in your own designs and documentation. You do not need to contact us for permission unless you’re reproducing the design for commercial purposes. For example, designing a chair for personal use based on examples from this book does not require permission. Selling or distributing the designs or design files does require permission. Answering a question by citing this book and quoting the text does not require permission. Incorporating a significant amount of content from this book into your product’s documentation does require permission.

We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN. For example: “Design for CNC: Furniture Projects and Fabrication Technique by Anne Filson, Gary Rohrbacher, and Anna Kaziunas France (Make). Copyright 2017, 978-1-457-18742-1.”

If you feel your use of design files falls outside fair use or the permission given here, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

Commercial Licensing

All AtFAB designs are by Filson and Rohrbacher, and the AtFAB name is a registered trademark. Use of both the designs and the mark is permitted for non-commercial use. Contact authors Filson and Rohrbacher for permission if you would like to use any of the designs (or variations of them) or use the AtFAB name in a commercial context.

How to Contact Us

Please address comments and questions concerning this book to the publisher:

  • Make:
  • 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240
  • San Francisco, CA 94111
  • 877-306-6253 (in the United States or Canada)
  • 707-639-1355 (international or local)

Make: unites, inspires, informs, and entertains a growing community of resourceful people who undertake amazing projects in their backyards, basements, and garages. Make: celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your will. The Make: audience continues to be a growing culture and community that believes in bettering ourselves, our environment, our educational system—our entire world. This is much more than an audience, it’s a worldwide movement that Make: is leading—we call it the Maker Movement.

For more information about Make:, visit us online:

We have a web page for this book, where we list errata, examples, and any additional information. You can access this page at http://designforcnc.com.

To comment or ask technical questions about this book, send email to .

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