I have had my Shapeoko for little more than a year and still learning and having a great time. As a avid DYI’erI am installing my third bath shower and needing shower pan that is tapered to allow draining, This pan that is tapered will then have tile layed on top of the Styrofoam. I have calculated the taper needed and plan on using 2" thick styroforam insulting board from a big box store. My thoughts are to cut 4 sections of broad 20" x 20" and using my shapeoko to taper to the center drain. Believe I would using a surface bit (1"diameter) and setting the 20x20 boards at an angle; to cut from corner to corner. This should get what I need with a center drain hole. The taper will be from 2" thick foam board. The high corner is 1/3/4" and the low corner 1" (drain) . What I am struggling with is the cut path to taper the desired decreasing cut to a thinner dimension. I have initial thoughts of raising one corner and surfacing with a wedge under the low corner uniformly across the foam panel, this would give me a taper based on the height of the shim under the corner? . I am not sure that the shapeoko has a tool path that could increment down and offer the same result as shimming the corner?? If so, I would like to have the shapeoko do all the work. Any suggestions would be welcomed. I have a shapeoko XL, thus some limits as to cut sizes, but I can work around that.
You ask, why am I attempting this ? For a 40 x 40" pre-sloped Styrofoam factory made they want $125, I can buy the board for less than $30, ( 4 x 8 ) and get two. All comments are welcome. Tom
To avoid the manual shimming/angle and let the Shapeoko to the work, it sounds like you “just” need a 3D toolpath along a surface. But the question is then, how comfortable are you with 3D modelling software and what CAM software do you have access to ?
Do you have a sketch of the full piece? (I’m not good at visualizing things in 3D based on text description)
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