Dave Hair recently provided more proof that necessity is the mother of invention.

In preparation for his 50th wedding anniversary, Dave faced a dilemma of not having the proper facilities in place for serving wine and drinks for 80 guests. Luckily it didn't take Dave too long to come up with a quick solution: CNC it!

Dave was able to use his machine to build a Champagne table that would serve both a necessity, and fit in with the style of the party. He ended up using Russian birch plywood, 3/4 inch for the top and 1/2 inch for the legs. The rail he used to hold the glass in place was scrap birch left over from the baseboards of his house when it was built several years ago!

Dave was able to use his blackToe running Mach3 to get the aesthetic he wanted with flawless execution and a beautiful result.

Dave says "The design is pretty much random as far as hole size and placement are concerned. It just looked interesting as I drew it. All eight legs are the same design. I did not miter them together, but used solid birch as the intersection. The pieces were glued and doweled. Doweling was interesting – 1/4 inch is not much room for a dowel, so I used bamboo skewers from the grocery store as my dowel material. That bamboo is tough! The hole size was only a couple hundredths larger than the dowel, so it took a mallet to drive them home."

Dave also said he would be happy to share the files on the cut for personal use. Here is the link to his project's webpage.

Dave Hair's latest project is a simple casserole carrier. As with his previous design, he's also made the files available (for private use only of course).

Dave says "This simple casserole carrier is used to take food to our dinner club and it is so handy that the other members wanted one also. My wife uses them as auction items for fund raising for her various civic activities. They cost about $10 to make and a couple of hours time.

I make mine on a CNC router, but that is really overkill – except for the precision of hole positioning and depth control and I can make them over and over again very quickly.

Basic dimensions are 15.5 inches by 9 inches by 3.375 inches. The pegs are 0.25 inches diameter and the hole spacing is 0.75 inches. The wood is poplar, as are the pegs – easily available at Lowes or Home Depot."

We look forward to seeing what Dave is going to make next!