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Greg Flanagan made a planned four-foot-tall, 18-inch-diameter tiki statue by CNC-routing three cedar slabs, then joining and hand-finishing them. His 2014 Make: project is most useful as a case study in layered carving and machine-clearance planning—not as a ready-made set of settings for another router.
Plan the sculpture as three machinable layers
Flanagan, owner of Tree On A Hill Workshop, took on a local restaurant commission despite having no formal sculpture training. He reviewed designs with the client, found a 3D model through SketchUp 3D Warehouse and TurboSquid, and modified its deep facial features in Rhino. In particular, he reduced the depth of the eyes and the gaps between teeth so the details could be machined more practically.
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He imported the STL into Vectric Aspire, set the intended dimensions, and used the software’s slicing feature to make three six-inch-thick model files. The outer sections were cut from one side; the center section was cut from both sides.
Choose material for both the cut and the final appearance
Flanagan considered polystyrene foam because he regarded it as inexpensive, light, and easy to cut on a CNC router. He chose not to use it because he did not feel confident faux-painting the foam to resemble weathered wood. For the sculpture’s planned patio placement, he instead selected cedar, citing its natural resistance to weather, rot, and insects. Those were his project considerations; the account does not report comparative material tests or long-term durability results.
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He bought 10-foot cedar timbers with a six-inch-square section, broke them down, and glued up three slabs, each measuring four feet by 18 inches by six inches. The layers supplied the full statue height while keeping each model section within the project’s planned stock dimensions.
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The machine was a ShopBot Buddy with a four-foot-by-four-foot table and eight inches of Z travel, as reported in Flanagan’s 2014 account. He described the table as just large enough for this job. The six-inch stock left just over six inches beneath the router bracket, and his two-inch bits left little room for the collet. He had to watch the machine, pause programs, and remove waste or high spots by hand to avoid collisions.
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Flanagan offered a planning heuristic for that particular machine: take the total Z travel, measured from the upper limit until the collet would hit the table, and divide by two. For his stated eight-inch travel, that gave four inches as the maximum stock thickness and bit length he would plan around while retaining room to move over stock. This is not a universal router formula. On another setup, check the full machine envelope, bracket and collet clearance, actual cutter reach, workholding, and toolpath together. CAM software that models the machine can help identify collisions, though Flanagan did not have that capability.
His retrospective lesson was: “Next time I will use 4" stock and 4" bits.” That change would have addressed the clearance difficulty he encountered; it should not be read as a generally safe or optimal dimension for other machines.
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Use the reported cutter settings only as project context
Flanagan reported the following settings for this 2014 cedar project on his ShopBot Buddy. They describe his setup, not recommended values for a different router, cutter, material, or workholding arrangement.
| Operation | Reported setup |
|---|---|
| Roughing | 1/2-inch, two-flute square end mill; 0.5-inch maximum depth per pass; 90% stepover; 2 inches per second feed; 14,000 RPM spindle speed. |
| Finishing | 1/2-inch, two-flute ballnose; 10% stepover; 2 inches per second feed; 14,000 RPM spindle speed. The article also lists a 0.5-inch depth per pass for finishing. |
He treated one cutter diameter as a general maximum depth per pass. After roughing, he could use a slightly longer bit because there was more space between the partially cut model and the spindle bracket. Before using any comparable settings, consult current guidance for the machine and cutter, and confirm that tool length, material, feed, speed, and workholding suit the actual setup.
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Register the flipped center layer
The middle slab needed machining from both the front and back. Flanagan attached a fence to the table so he could register the workpiece after flipping it. That registration method helped align the two-sided cut, but it did not make every surface reachable: the shape left a two-inch ridge that the router could not machine directly.
For a similar layered design, account for both the alignment problem and the material a cutter cannot reach. A fence can provide a repeatable reference for flipping, but the geometry and tool access still determine how much ridge or excess stock must be removed by hand.
Glue, shape, and finish after routing
After machining the three slabs, Flanagan assembled them with improvised clamping, used two quarts of glue, and left the sculpture clamped for a day. CNC routing established the broad carved form, but substantial hand work remained: he used hand scrapers, die grinders, and an angle grinder fitted with a sanding disc to remove tool marks and add details.
He finished the sculpture with a waterproofing deck finish and black-and-white accents. The article does not name a finish brand or report how the piece performed outdoors over time, so it cannot establish a particular product’s suitability or service life.
What the project demonstrates
- Breaking a tall sculpture into three six-inch layers made the model manageable for the described workflow: one-sided machining on the outer slabs and two-sided machining on the middle slab.
- Stock thickness, cutter length, Z travel, and bracket/collet clearance need to be considered as one constraint, not as separate specifications.
- Two-sided machining requires a reliable registration reference and may still leave inaccessible areas for hand shaping.
- Routing is only one part of the result: glue-up, clamping, scraping, grinding, sanding, and painting or coating all contributed to the finished tiki.
Source: Greg Flanagan, “Routing a Four Foot Tall Tiki Sculpture,” Make:, March 23, 2014: https://makezine.com/article/workshop/woodworking/routing-a-four-foot-tall-tiki-sculpture/.
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