Hello everyone and thank you for any advise you give. I am newer to inlays (and CNC’ing) and trying to zero in on strong repeatable settings. I am hearing from various sources that in order to get better results, they recommend doing the vee bit tool path first and then the pocket tool.
My question: Is there a way to switch this order in carbide create (non-pro) Advanced VCarve Toolpath?
There is a checkbox for toggling this in v7.
In the new v8 beta the toolpaths are separated and may be arranged as desired.
Thank you! I’ll uncheck that box on my next inlay.
There are advantages and disadvantages in doing the vee bit first. When doing the vee bit first you are cutting more material. After the pocket is done only half the material is remaining to cut with the vee bit. In general I do the pockets first.
There are cases where I change that. On long jobs I might pause after the pockets are done and stop the job. Then the next day I edit the CC file and cut the vee bit part first. The pockets are already cut so when the tool change is requested I pause and stop the job. So there are reasons to change the order but the pockets cut first is personal preference but has a good reason about the amount of material cut by the vee bit last. Either way works.
Thanks for this. My use case is working on an inlay with some fine detail. I have run into some of that detail “chipping off” so was looking to see if this order of operations would give me a better outcome on my project.
So cutting the vee bit first might work for pieces being chipped off because there is more material to start with. Unfortunately wood is prone to chipping. Different woods are worse and better. The really hard brittle woods chip more than softer woods like poplar. Of course poplar is not very attractive. As a woodworker you are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Very true. Thank you!
I too was having issues with parts of my plug design chipping off during cutting. I switched to doing the V carve first and the pockets second and it has helped out a lot.