Skyrim - Windhelm Hold Shield - Update II

So this is long overdue, but this past weekend I was able to get some time on the Shopbot Alpha and finished the main cutting of the Pink foam base for the shield.  The first two pictures are from my first attempt, I learned a lot from it, and you can see that I struggled with registration. The side I started with (first picture) is perfect, however when I flipped it over and registered it based on the corner of the foam, you can see that it's probably 1/2 an inch skewed/offset. So this is how it sat for a couple weeks.
















 

At the same time I cut the first batch of foam, I cut the MDF. I'm using MDF mostly because it's cheap and readily available. Although not pictured, my first attempt was on 1/2 in MDF. The main board grains were cut 1/8 in deep, the actual grain lines were cut 1/16 in deep. This gave it a really accentuated pattern which I really liked. I switched to 1/4 in MDF though to save on weight so that changed the depth at which I could cut. The board lines in this instance are 1/16 in and the grain lines are 1/32 It's still pronounced, but requires weathering to really accentuate it. I cut an additional mdf blank a bit deeper and will compare before I put the final piece together as to which I like better. I think I will be leaning towards the deeper cut one just based on recognition.

Onto how I fixed my foam cutting issue. When I first cut it I was using the bottom left corner as the origin point. With this version I switched the origin to the center point. The cutting was done with a 3/4 in router bit, so at the center of the piece I plunged and cut a hole all the way through. I cut a pocket the size of the MDF insert and slightly larger in the thickness, so that it would sit below the level of the foam. When I went to flip it, I sent the machine to the home position 0,0 - and then used the hole I cut to slide the foam over the bit and effectively re-center it. This got it to within an 1/8 of an inch, which was pretty good in my book. Since I knew the center point was 100% registered I ran a cut job and trimmed excess making sure the outside was a uniform size all the way around on both sides.

In the picture there are some blue lines these we scribed with a sharpie and a compass and I will be using a fine rasp to chamfer from line to line to create the rim of the shield.

A word about the photgraphy - I know it's not the best. I'm trying to get a place set up to where I can actually document my work (not just taking some Iphone pictures). These didnt come out as great as I liked and are heavily processed in Photoshop as a result (auto-color). This will be an ongoing challenge for me so please bear with it.

I've got to go cut those chamfers and hopefully I can work some more on this; this week or next.

If you guys have any questions regarding the cutting process my previous entry was pretty detailed, but feel free to let me know. I appreciate any and all feedback.

Cheers,
Kevin