CNC routing in Port Stephens

Most router shops are either a sign shop that bought a machine, or a joiner with a spare corner of the shed. We come at it from the other end. This is a machine shop. The router gets programmed the same way the mill gets programmed, and it gets checked the same way too.

The machine

It is an Onefinity Journeyman X-50 running a Buildbotics controller, with a 65mm Makita router in the mount. For a shop this size it is a big table — long boards and full sheets are not a problem, and a job too long for one setup gets stepped along the bed and indexed.

Cutting area is 1200 × 800mm, with about 130mm of Z travel.

What it cuts

• Hardwood — Australian hardwoods, reclaimed beams and decking, feature timber
• Softwood — pine and cedar for signs and shed work
• Plywood — marine and structural ply, jig stock, panels
• MDF — patterns, templates, sacrificial fixtures, paint-grade sign blanks
• Acrylic and other plastics — clear and coloured acrylic, HDPE, acetal, nylon
• Aluminium — plates, signage, gauges and templates

If you are not sure whether your material will cut, ring and tell us what it is. Some things do not belong on a router and we will say so.

Every program is proven before it runs

This is the part nobody thinks about until it costs them a board.

Before the cutter touches your timber, the whole program is run on screen and checked for gouges — every pass, every tool change, every retract. We look for the cutter dipping where it should not, the collet nut clipping a raised edge, a plunge that goes deeper than the stock. If the program has a fault in it, we find it on the screen, not on your board.

That matters most on the last pass. A carved sign or a relief panel is hours of cutting, and the finishing pass is where the machine is closest to the finished surface. That is exactly where a bad program does its damage. Ours are checked before they go anywhere near a spindle.

It also means we can cut material you cannot replace. A slab off a tree that came out of your grandfather’s paddock only exists once.

The design is done here

All the modelling is done in Fusion 360, in this workshop. No outside draftsman, no waiting a fortnight for a file to come back.

Bring whatever you have:

• A sketch on the back of a docket
• A photo of a sign you liked
• A logo, in any format — we will redraw it if it is not clean
• A rough idea and a size

We model it, show you what it will look like, and cut it once you are happy. If something in the design will not work — lettering too fine for the cutter, a detail that will fall off, a timber that will not hold the shape — we tell you before it is cut, not after.

What we make on the router

• Carved signs and lettering — house signs, shop signs, shed and bar signs, name plates
• 3D relief panels and carvings — Australian wildlife, custom artwork, carved proud of a textured background
• Timber slab and reclaimed hardwood work — flattening, profiling, edge shaping
• Jigs, templates and patterns — for your shop, in ply, MDF, plastic or aluminium
• Plaques, house numbers and one-off gifts — awards, retirement and wedding pieces

What is on the machine at the moment

Right now a lot of the router time goes into reclaimed hardwood — old beams and old decking, flattened and then profiled with a curved edge and shaped to size. Timber like that is hard, dirty and full of surprises, and it is exactly the sort of material where a checked program earns its keep.

Carved lettering is proven work — it has been run, and it comes out clean.

Small shop, straight answers

There is Todd and one machinist. You talk to the bloke who writes the program and stands next to the machine while it cuts. If we are booked out, we will say so rather than sit on your job.

We are at 12 George Road, Salamander Bay, open Monday to Friday.