Hi all, I’m new to the cnc world and I’m having a little trouble with fine detail work. I tried to use advance v carve to do an eagle with feathers, but it is just breaking material out around the feathers because the spacing is so small. Please help what bit is everyone using to do fine detail work. I’m using a 5 pro.
What material are you cutting?
Using what tooling?
Could you post the file and a photo showing the results?
I would not normally send a person to my work but I have only just posted this file. Is this the sort of result you were looking for? This is a 3D STL file that extends for 18.29mm through the stock from top zero to base of carve. It shows fine detail and I used a 0.25mm ball end cutter.
The toolpath was a circular path from the inside to the outside of the workpiece. Often people use a raster file pattern which proceeds left and right until the whole workpiece has been traversed. I prefer the circular toolpath because it does not leave behind the sometime seen ‘tramlines’ where a tool follows in the same furrows while removing material. The circular toolpath takes smaller bites and removes all of the material under the toolhead in a single pass and does not have to return to remove it in layers.
EDIT: to add cutter image. The cutter is next to the roughed eagle model.
Depending on material usually fine lines/detail works best with a 15/20 degree vee bit. Make sure you know the angle of the tool you are using because putting the wrong tool in when specifying a certain angle vee bit will cause issues.
Things like plywood will chip out on very fine detail. Since plywood is alternating layers at 90 degrees and very fine detail has very little glue holding it to the lower layers. Plus certain woods are prone to chipping. The harder the wood the less chipping you get. One way to harden up any wood is to apply a couple of coats of dewaxed shellac. The Zinsser Universal Sanding Sealer is dewaxed shellac. Zinsser also makes a shellac finish but says shellac on the label. Stiffening up the surface of the wood helps. Since in a CNC carve we cannot control grain direction we have to accept some chip out when cutting cross grain. Cuts running along the grain will be smoother and leave less fuzz and chip out behind. Things like plastics/HDPE/PVC have no grain so they tend to cut more uniformly than wood. Wood still carves well but have a sharp tool and try hardening the surface. You did not say what vee bit you are using but the smaller the angle, like 15 degrees, works better for fine lines over a 90/60 degree vee bit.
Lastly Cadance Manufacturing makes some down cut vee bits called Groovee Jenny. I have the 60 degree and it cuts very well even in soft pine. Most vee bits are just cutting at a 90 degree angle to the surface and not shearing the wood fibers like a down cut bit.