Hey, I’ve got some sort-of intricate/small pieces I’m trying to cut out of wood, and I’m using sticky tape to hold down the stock. The problem is though that I want to avoid placing tape down on the areas that will be cut with the endmill (the tape seems to gum up the endmill), and I want to get the tape fairly close to the cut edges (simply because the pieces are small and I want to get as much holddown as possible).
For pieces with lots of 90 degree angles it’s not too bad - just a lot of measuring and drawing lines on the stock and then placing tape. But for other stuff (I want to cut out a 3 inch wide star, but just a 1/4" wide outline of - think something like this, it’s actually kind of sucky to try to place the tape on the stock.
I was wondering if anybody had any elegant solutions.
The best I can think of, which sucks is
- Flip model over in modeling software
- Take screenshot
- Take into image software (photoshop/gimp/illustrator), size correctly so an inch is an inch. (optionally, also draw lines to mark the outside edge of the cut - so offset all lines by endmill radius)
- Print out image
- Cut out shape with scissors
- Place paper shape on stock and trace it onto the stock.
I don’t actually own a printer, so for me, I’d need to do something even jankier in place of step 4:
- Size image correctly onscreen, hold paper up to screen and trace it onto paper.
Any better workflows out there?
It might just be easier to tape everything and let the endmill get gummy although I don’t know if, while cutting up the tape, if it is likely to pull up the taped stock nearby (esp if I am cutting very small pieces out - I am also planning on cutting out some .25" x .25" x .5" sticks).