Tabletop CNC Routers have greatly revolutionised the lives of makers the world over, but recent university graduates Bar Smith and Tom Beckett noticed a gap in what was available: There was a distinct lack of options on the market for cash-strapped students and other individuals of limited means. Smith and Beckett decided to take matters into their own hands and create a router kit—dubbed the Makesmith CNC—which makes use of off-the-shelf parts and a laser cutter, keeping costs to a bare minimum.
Bar Smith’s mission began two years ago, when he began working in a graduate students’ lab and experienced full access to a laser cutter and a board router. Bar soon fell in love, and desired to have his own rapid prototyping tool. After weeks of researching to find an affordable tabletop CNC router, Bar was shocked to discover that the cheapest option was still a whopping six hundred US dollars (about three hundred pounds). Obviously, for many students, such a price tag means that purchasing a tabletop CNC router is patently impossible.
After this experience, Bar found he could not stop thinking of all the engineers, hobbyists, tinkers, and artists whose work would flourish if they could just attain their own desktop CNC machines. From this moment on, Bar had a dream: Make an affordable tabletop CNC router so that anyone could benefit from their wide range of practical and creative applications.
Bar began developing the Makesmith in the summer of 2012, using pizza boxes to create a series of laser-cut prototypes which were later finalised with the Makesmith’s actual frame material (MDF), motors, and encoders. A year and a half after he started, Bar teamed up with his friend Tom Beckett and funded the Makesmith via a massively successful crowdfunding campaign. Finally, people from all walks of life would have access to the benefits of CNC technology.
The Makesmith, like all CNC machines, will employ a two or three dimensional computer model of an object from which it very precisely mills, cuts, or shapes an object out of a range of materials. Despite the Makesmith’s low cost, it is designed to be as versatile as possible, and can cut wood, plastic, foam, and many other soft materials. Unlike more expensive machines it is not intended to cut metals, and as is the case with all small at-home CNC machines, one will still need to send away to a professional CNC mill to handle large projects (as tabletop CNC routers generally cannot create very large parts) and for the creation of complex durable metal parts. For home use and use by beginners, however, the Makesmith kit will provide the perfect stepping stone into the world of professional CNC milling, helping young people to develop the skills and expertise that will see them one day thriving in the industry.
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