Nate Kaiser

About the Project

A few months after starting my career at Caterpillar, one of my new colleagues and I were discussing CNC routers and our desire to one day build one. Each of us had occasionally used machining centers throughout our college years, and we both had a list of projects we thought would be fun to make, many of which required milling capabilities. After a (very) brief deliberation period, we decided to each make a separate machine, since we both wanted to have one in the future.

Over the next two years, I dedicated many of my nights and weekends coming up with the requirements, designing a system to meet them, reevaluating and questioning these requirements, and finally settling on a rough design concept I thought was the perfect balance of performance, cost, and utility.

Once I had the overall system concepted, it was time to flesh out the details. Every decision came under scrutiny as each idea was tried, tweaked, and retried. As the design settled, component orders began to fill my workshop, and eventually it was time to start assembling everything together.

Putting it together was the most enjoyable (and, unfortunately, the shortest) portion of the project, as I was able to see the culmination of all my work come together as planned. There were a few hiccups along the way, but it was a relatively smooth process overall, and I rushed through the initial software setup to run my first program and watch as my machine flawlessly traced out invisible paths generated by the control software.

Over the years, I've made many simple parts (mostly for fun) and have helped my friends make many more of their own. The project has had many homes, from proper workshops to being stored in pieces in the corner of my apartment living room. It's currently in the basement of a friend at Iowa State, where he plans to use it to make high-quality speaker cabinets for himself and our other audio enthusiast friends.

Above all, this project was a great learning opportunity in unexpected subjects, namely project documentation and making sure to share the fun parts of the project via social media for others' enjoyment and to inspire their inner maker!