You can sing that, Ed! My use of a fixture tooling plate underlines that sentiment in spades. I had not understood the strength of the sideways forces generated by milling. It becomes obvious when starting to to mill metal. An MDF spoilboard with some indexed holes just could not support the workpieces reliably. I could not achieve any accuracy until I moved to the fixture tooling plate. Being able to hold the workpiece easily in a reproducible way, while knowing that it will not move, is a next level revelation in CNC machining with hobby level machines.
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Your shift knob is an awesome ideal and does enhance the car even if the carpets need vacuumed as you stated lols. I was going to say have you thought about laser engrave, but you beat me to that also. I also like that you are open minded about differing types of wood material. Years ago I was into molten casting with metal and made a shift knob for my car out of aluminum it was a skull with inset jewels for the eyes everyone liked, I even cast some locking knobs that matched the shift knob for the doors . Other than the shift knob getting very hot in the California summer sun It was something that I enjoyed and I used soda cans to make. but now to my point.
There is a Youtuber that builds all kinds of super beautiful things with Baltic Birch plywood and he does edge graining like no tomorrow. His name is Michael Alm here is his channel link https://www.youtube.com/c/MichaelAlm
Also here is a link to one of His videos were he makes edge-grained plywood with Baltic Birch Making Edge-Grain Patterned Plywood - YouTube
He also does a power carve, making a bowl with his pattern made plywood Carving Patterned Plywood Bowls - YouTube There is nothing to say that a CNC can not be used to make many many things even a one of a kind shift knob. Also here is a thought to edge grain patterned dash setup with those OEM gages surrounded by that awesome look all tied in to the Shift knob. Good luck. I am looking forward to your creative adventures with your automobile and your CNC.
Edit: to correct grammar.
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