X-Carve Accessory Mount

Drag Knife, Pen Plotter, Diamond Drag

Motivation

I was looking for a way to cut thin material (vinyl and paint mask) on my X-Carve, the only options I could find were expensive drag knives that needed special software or dedicated hardware with limited sizes available. I wanted a solution that could take advantage of size of my machine. Ideally using materials I already had on hand or readily available locally. My X-Carve is 1000mmX1500mm since the upgrade I wanted to make a cornhole board set but not have to fuss with epoxy engravings. The simplest way I could think of was to cut a vinyl stencil out which led me down the drag knife rabbit hole.

tl:dr I wanted to make a cornhole set and I did not want to buy Cricut/Silhouette or Drag Knife.

Version 1

Having used a Silhouette Cameo 2 I knew that blade system was my starting point.

Using leftover makerslide from when I replaced my Z axis I created a mount that allows the makerside to move freely up and down. Then I attached the Silhouette blade directly to the makerslide. The first tests used only the weight of the slide and blade to apply pressure to the material. Later screwed on a latex to help apply pressure. This was surprisingly successful and also allowed the material to not be truly flat to the table.

Version 2

After a few tests I wanted to make as a more finished product. I had some leftover corian from another project. I decided to try tapping it to hold the blade in place. Corian holds threads why better than I expected. I added tabs to hold standard rubber bands making installation much easier.

This was the first version I made available in a limited run.

Version 3

The quest to make it smaller. Makerslide is great, but a wide mounting plate is required to make it work. It also sticks further out than necessary. At least compared to v slot. The design remained the same overall. I decided to make the blade holder larger and rename it to the accessory slot. I also started testing a more professional style blade holder.

Version 4

Ever have wake up in the middle of the night with an idea. Well that is version 4. Instead of using 2040 v slot I switched to 2020 v slot. Designing this took me from standard v wheels to micro v wheels. These two changes allowed me to make the mount 2 inches wide. Significantly smaller than the first version. It also had the added benefit of not requiring me to recess the screw holes on the mounting plate. Another major change is the accessory mount. I changed the hole shape to a teardrop to improve holding of accessories. (Though sadly now it looks like a toilet seat.) I added 2 thumb knobs, one to the accessory mount and the other to a arm to allow you to zero out the z axis faster.

X-Carve Accessory Mount

Drag Knife, Pen Plotter, Diamond Drag

Motivation

Version 1

Version 2

Version 3

Version 4

Version 2 vs 4

Videos

Early Testing

Projects

Testing stain with Oramask 813

Vinyl House numbers

Projects