I have acrylic already cut to 5" x 4" and I need to shape only the top edge to this configuration:
How can I get my Shapeoko XL / Carbide create to do this?
Thanks!
Don
Subtract that shape from a rectangle and only cut it.
Unfortunately, Carbide Create doesn’t have a facility to offset paths, nor to cut an open path w/o closing it.
The proper thing to do here would be to:
- open the SVG in a drawing program (if you have one — if not, re-draw it there)
- delete the sides and the bottom
- outline the stroke by half the diameter (plus 5%) of the endmill
- again delete the sides and the bottom path
- outline the stroke by the diameter of the endmill plus 10%
- cut the resultant path as a pocket.
This is simple enough that one can just set it as a background template in Carbide Create and redraw it w/a couple of boolean operations. Hang on, step-by-step instructions coming up.
Step-by-step instructions:
- open the JPEG in a pixel editor and remove all background area so that what you wish to cut is the desired stock size
Then, open Carbide Create:
- set the stock size to 5" x 4"
- go to the background image pane
- load the image and scale it appropriately
(details on doing this are here: https://shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/Carbide_Create_Photo_Tracing )
Draw in the geometry which you will need:
Select the top two elements and union them:
Select the new geometry and the bottom rectangle and (assuming the rectangle is the key object with a dashed line highlight) subtract the rectangle from the new geometry:
Resulting in:
Then select the original geometry and the circle:
and subtract:
and you’re done.
In order to cut this with a 1/4" endmill you’ll need to lie to the system about the diameter of the endmill — report it as 6mm (at least 10% less than the 1/4" thickness of the path) and offset appropriately.
It is left as an exercise for the reader how to adjust the paths by tweaking the underlying grid to get the 1/4" + 10 percent thickness which being honest would entail.
Please note that the automatic feeds and speeds for at least one material in Carbide Create are wrong, w/ an essentially zero depth per pass — please use the feeds and speeds from the official chart instead.
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Thanks Will… this looks great!
Don