I normally work with zeroing from the top of my workpiece and cutting to certain depths, but I have a few small slabs that I want to bring down to thickness since I don’t own a planer. What are the tool paths that I should do to bring a 1.5" slab down to 1.25" - I’ve never worked with zeroing from the table. Is the following correct?
Set stock thickness to 1.5"
Select Zero Height = Bottom. Then actually zero off the table.
Oversize geometry to cover edges of slab
Pocket toolpath with 0.1" DOC → this is where I get confused. Will the tool go to the stock thickness + retract height and then start cutting right at stock thickness. I think yes, but I want to make sure I’m not missing anything.
I find it easiest to work from the surface of the stock — that way the file is invariant of stock thickness.
Don’t worry about the stock thickness until the entire stock is surfaced smooth on each side — then measure and work from that measurement — it’s much easier w/ an S2S piece.
A few questions: Is your slab reasonably flat? You mention flattening the slab in the title but then say you want to change its thickness. Is it both? Zeroing from the table would be useful if your slab is flat (on the bottom) because then you can easily calculate the thickness you’ll end up with
z-zero + 1.25".
If you zero on the top using the highest point on your slab and surface it down to what you’ve determined is the lowest spot, provided the cutter has touched the entire surface, you now have a flat side on your slab. Flip the slab over, zero from the waste board, surface down to your desired thickness.
Yes sorry, the slabs have already been planed flat - they just are too thick for my application of them so I need to remove some thickness. I’ll double check the flatness and do the first surfacing and flip to finish if I find I need to
