CNC Crafting Custom Basement Window Covers

Hi, I’m Mike Schienle. I’m adding some basement window covers to our home. We moved into this rural home in early 2023, and it needed a lot of work to be done. This house was built in 1969 and has a neglected history, along with a poorly executed rehab from a flipper before we purchased it.

From plumbing, electrical, flooring, roofing, tree felling, new septic and well pumps, we’ve had contractors repairing and updating our home on a regular basis.

And we still have more to come in 2024. We’ve been taking on projects on our own, as well, such as replacing flimsy closet doors with wooden sliding barn doors, and these covers for some basement windows which have exterior glass, but just deep, empty holes in the interior.

We start off this project by flattening both sides of the boards using a flattening program which is linked in the description. I created the program that generates the flattening files using web-based input. I’m a software engineer for nearly 40 years now, and like many of us geeks with a little spare time, we tend to create things that interact with web sites, databases and other technologies to do little utilities to make our daily lives a little more productive.

We just finished flattening the back of the covers from 7/8” to 5/8”and I sanded them to 180 grit off camera.

We’ll now flatten the front of the covers from 5/8” to 1/2” and sand to 220 grit off camera.

I recently purchased a 3M Xtract 6” random orbital sander as a replacement to a pair of old Porter Cable 5” sanders. I’ve been experiencing some wrist pain from the Porter Cable sanders over the last couple years, so it was time to make a higher quality purchase. I’m happy with the 3M sander so far, but I’ve only used it for less than an hour, so I really don’t have much to say until I’ve used it more. As you can see, I’m such a rookie with this sander that I forgot to turn on the dust collector in my other hand for a bit.

Our basement has gray wood floors and gray accents, so we decided on the gray stain for the cedar boards to match. It really is a nice look in each of the rooms.

The CNC artwork comes from Ursa Major Designs for the bison and bear and from Vadim Burucenco for the Tree of Life. Links are provided to their respective Etsy stores in the description below. My wife and I picked the bear and bison designs since they fit the rural country motif of our home.

My wife, Rev. Dr. Rhonda Schienle, is an ordained interfaith minister, and loves the symbolism for the Tree of Life across many religions and cultures. That cover is used in her office above her desk. The bison covers go in the laundry room and the bear cover goes in the workout room.

The majority of the artwork is as purchased. However, you’ll see in each of them that additional holes are being drilled completely through the covers to allow some light to pass through. This provides a nice outline of the animal or tree, as well.

The bear and bison covers only require two bits, a 1/8” end mill for drilling and cutting out the cover from the larger board, and a 90 degree V-bit, which cuts the mountains, streams and stars. The Tree of Life uses an additional bit called a tapered ball nose for the high detail needed within the branches and roots of the tree. Links for these are also in the description.

I’ll have a little more to say near the end of this video, so please enjoy the CNC doing its thing for the next seven or so minutes.

There are several ways to finish the edges of these covers, either leave them square, chamfer at an angle with a plane or router bit, or roundover with a bit. I went with a chamfer using a block plane I created on my CNC a couple years ago. These are very simple to use and leave a great result. This one is similar in size to a Stanley #2 plane, is made with walnut and uses a Hock Tools blade.

The covers were finished with a few coats of shellac which provides a nice, satin finish. I sanded between coats with 320 grit and cleaned with denatured alcohol.

Thank you for watching, and please take a moment to hit the Like, Share and Subscribe buttons, and let me know in the discussion what you think of the designs and how they look in place of the bare windows.

Contacts:
Email - mike@windridgewoodcrafts.com
Website - https://windridgewoodcrafts.com
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/WindRidgeWoodCrafts/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/windridgewoodcrafts/

Non-Affiliate Links (software, tools and components I use and recommend for no commission):
CNC Slab Flattener Utility - https://windridgewoodcrafts.com/utilities/cnc_flat/
Vectric VCarve Pro - https://www.vectric.com/products/vcarve-pro
Onefinity Journeyman CNC - https://www.onefinitycnc.com
Cadence Manufacturing and Design (router bits) - https://www.cadencemfgdesign.com
Ursa Major Design - https://www.etsy.com/shop/UrsaMajorDesignCo
Vadim Burucenco - https://www.etsy.com/listing/617741344/3d-stl-models-for-cnc-tree