A different sort of box

Will,
This works great!

I am still wading through the messages in this thread to make sure I understand how to stack everything and assign toolpaths. It appears that I need to get a small 90 degree v-bit. I am not sure if the one I have meets the same requirements.

This is an awesome capability you created. There is a definite learning curve for me.

Thank you

Alternately, you could do half-blind box joints ā€” no V tool necessary ā€” Iā€™m working up a tool for that now.

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Will,
I have a couple questions. I finally got a chance to cut a box and the results were not what I was expecting. It turns out I didnā€™t follow the instructions closely. Still, I am a bit confused about what I should of done. Here are the two parts that confused me:

  1. Select the joint geometry and assign toolpaths to a depth of stock thickness minus the height of the V endmill angle: (This is for the miters.)

  2. (edit the no offset contour toolpath for the V endmill and move it to the bottom of the toolpath list and set its begin depth to that thickness)

I used the same v-bit that you recommended and Amana 45625 #390 in my tool database, the rest of the cuts uses a 1/16th bit.

For #1, On the Joints, I wanted to make sure that the output of the tool was giving me the correct depth for the pockets.

My mistake is that I carved the V-bit work first and I didnā€™t catch the not about setting the beginning depth. I ended up with a gap at the corners. That is everything fits together, but the corners have gaps and donā€™t meet.

Can you offer a suggestion or two about what I am doing wrong?

Could you post your file?

Box test 3 - v1.c2d (1.0 MB)

Here it is

One thing I noticed is that the depth of the joint may be wrong. Of my two questions above, the first one sets the depth that the pocket will be for the joints.

According to the above, the stock is .25" the height of the end mill is .125" The difference is .125" = 3.175mm. I used1.5875mm, which seems a bit shallow.

The solution is pretty much always to draw things up in profile so as to show how the cut will be made and then rotate the two drawings and compare.

Could you provide a screengrab showing the Customizer settings you used?

Will,
Unfortunately, my saves in OpenSCAD didnā€™t preserve my setting changes. I guess I didnā€™t save it properly.

This might not help but here is my best recollection:
I know that I used a stock thickness of .25 and the default dimensions. I used the 390 v-bit and I recall using the #282 as it was. As it turns out, I used a 1/16" bit when I did the cuts though. I figured this wasnā€™t going to be an issue (I discovered this after the fact).

I would appreciate any insights you might have

Okay, hereā€™s what I get for that:

which comes out as:

I believe the problem is the joinery depth (1.5875) is being given as the height from the bottom, but you interpreted it as depth from the top of the stock.

Iā€™m hoping weā€™ll get a bit more control over SVG import which will ameliorate this sort of difficulty.

Will,
Well, that explains the results I got. I didnā€™t realize that it was the depth from the bottom. Correcting that will give me a far better result.

You recommended that the v-bit carve be done last (before the cut out). Does that make a difference?

Thank you for all of your help and for creating this tool. It really is great. Itā€™s just taking me time to get dialed in.

Itā€™s easier to do the V carving after all the material above it is removed.

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That does make sense. I am looking forward to making the adjustments and seeing how it goes.
Thanks again

Will,
I seem to have issues with corners no matter what. This time I adjusted the depth of the cut for the joints to be the depth from the bottom of the stock. Here is what I am getting now. Itā€™s confusing.

Here is an example:

What Iā€™ve been doing is cutting a test file, then adjusting the depth based on the gap.

OK, That seems fairā€¦ I guess correction should be 50% of the gap width reducing the depth of the pocket (my cuts are relative to the top of the stock). It did help to use the v-bit after the cutting the pockets for the joints.