ShopBot’s CNC Indexing Tool

I have a ShopBot Desktop – a wonderful little CNC table router – and many people are surprised that it is possible to get an indexer for it. An indexer allows you to basically turn your CNC table router into a mini-lathe with all the incredible precision. It’s pretty cool to see in action – Jack posted this on the ShopBot forums so I though I’d share it here.

Cutting on Indexer

Assembly/Use

If you want to find out more about the ShopBot Desktop, watch the video I made introducing pretty much every aspect of this machine, it’s long… but covers just about anything and everything somebody new to the field would want to know.

ShopBot Tools ShopBot Desktop: CNC Machine Walkthrough

What can you do with a CNC table router indexer?

You can actually do quite a bit actually, although you don’t have much length (ShopBot Desktop model) you can make unique wooden pens, 3D mazes (videos above), neat pegs, vampire daggers. If you think about it though, you could make a square, triangular or any shape you really wanted as it doesn’t need to be round in diameter.

A major benefit of using this over a traditional non-CNC lathe is that you have the bit spinning and not the piece, which allows you to make very unique engravings that otherwise would have to go all the way around the model. Another unique aspect of taking this approach to lathing is repeatability, as you could technically make the diameters all the same by routing it “round” first then cutting through the material making all the pieces 100% identical pattern wise. Though, at least with the ShopBot Desktop version, a major limiting factor is the z-depth you have to contend with which limits the diameter you have to play with but it’s still a wonderful introduction to table routing indexing (as the ShopBot desktop is to general CNC table routing) and even CNC lathes in general… all without having to learn a line of G-code!

If you want to get your very own, head over to ShopBot Tools’ website at http://ShopBotTools.com