I built this balance board for my 6 year old son after he saw one at LEAF (for $140…).
The board is about 40“ long, so too big to cut with the CNC. Instead, I used the laser cutter to cut a template of half the board in cardboard, and then traced this onto the board twice to get a full profile. I cut just outside of the trace with a jigsaw, and then sanded away the excess material down to the line using a hand held belt sander with the board in a vise. This allowed me to get the shape very accurate with smooth edges. Finally, I used a small router table to round over the corners on the sides.
I taped over the center of the board and used the laser cutter to cut a small oval in the tape and engrave the cheetah. I then peeled away the tape around the outside of the oval and remasked the area where the cheetah had been engraved and spray painted the board black. On the reverse side, I used the same approach for the oval, but I also cut out the letters of his name and peeled them away do when I spray painted that side black, his name was painted at the same time..
Finally, I painted the lightning bolts using a template I cut in cardboard on the laser cutter. They didn't come out as clean as I would have liked, and if I were doing it again, I would use the same approach that I used for the cheetah and his name (i.e. mask the area, cut out the shape with the laser cutter, peel the tape from the inside, and then spray paint it).
The roller is just 4” PVC. I spray painted it black as well and glued two strips of vinyl around it to improve traction. The pipe has a circular support in the middle as well as support on each end from wooden pieces cut out on the CNC mill. The caps were also spray painted black and a laser cut template was used for the spirals.
The pictures don't do it justice - it really looks good!
