Mesa de billar Gary Mast

How would you go from working 80+ hours a week for over 30 years to retirement? Well, this month’s customer case study Gary Mast has had to make this jump, and to fill up his time he has taken to the world of CNC. You may have seen Gary’s outstanding work on the Vectric Forum and his posts have gained a lot of attention – especially his latest piece which he will be taking us through a bit later in the article. Before we discover how he had made his fantastic project we had to find out about his background…In 1967, while I was still in high school, I bought into a very small equipment rental business. After my graduation I became manager. About 3-years later, the original owner died and I was able to acquire 50% ownership of the business. In the 1990’s I became 100% owner and by 1997 I built the company to five locations and became the largest Equipment Rental Company in Utah. In 1997, the year United Rentals was established, I became the first company they bought out before going public – I retired two months my 47th birthday.

I went from working 80-hours a week for the past three decades, to suddenly having nothing to do. It was at this point I decided I wanted to pursue a hobby in making things out of wood, so I decided to buy a Laser Engraver. I found it to be very unsatisfying and soon after replaced it with my first CNC machine.El paquete de software que se vendía junto con la máquina CNC que estaba mirando era muy caro, así que necesitaba encontrar una alternativa con la misma funcionalidad. La empresa a la que le compré la máquina CNC me recomendó una empresa nueva con un software mucho más asequible llamado Vectric, así que inicialmente compré sus programas Cut3D y VCarve.

En 2008, Vectric lanzó un nuevo producto llamado Aspire; quería adentrarme más en el modelado 3D, así que lo compré poco después. Aunque tengo Cut3D, VCarve Pro y PhotoVCarve, desde que salió Aspire no he necesitado usar el otro software de Vectric. Aspire es el software principal que uso en todos mis proyectos. Incluso lo uso para generar el arte y los vectores para mi cortadora láser y los vectores para la cortadora de plasma. Me aseguro de actualizar Aspire para obtener todas las novedades.En cuanto a maquinaria, lo que se te ocurra, probablemente lo he tenido. Convertí mi garaje para autocaravanas en mi casa con todo lo necesario para trabajar la madera. Actualmente tengo una máquina CNC, una cortadora láser de 400 vatios, una sierra de mesa de 12 pulgadas, una sierra de cinta de 18 pulgadas, un colector de polvo ciclónico Grizzly de 5 hp, una lijadora de tambor, una impresora 3D de uso comercial, un torno y una fresadora, por nombrar solo algunos de los equipos que tengo en mi taller.