SO far, I think the one thing I learned so far is I really don’t like using an end mill for creating a nice pocket. At least not the way I have been creating my tool paths so far. I will experiment some more with reducing the d.o.c. to lighten the load on the spindle and I will try to use the RASTER method whenever possible to reduce changing the direction the cutter travels in the wood so often as the offset method does. It takes longer to raster out a big pocket but the results seem well worth it.
Honestly, I hadn’t really done any research into why/when I should use an offset over a raster strategy… I will now. I have been checking the machine for any looseness in the carriages and the spindle plate prior to every job and to me, the machine has felt very solid… The spindle can be ever so slightly flexed back and forth, parallel to the Y rails, so I will double check those spindle mount screws that attach the mounting plate to the Z plate… It is very slight though and I think that is just the normal feel and the best I can expect given the way the spindle mount is designed.
I appreciate all the help! Really. I’ll keep checking everything and making adjustments and run some more tests on some scrap wood to try and better understand how to avoid these poor results I got this time around. At least I was able to salvage the job with a light pass using a ballnose bit. It’s still going to require some hand work with the dremel in the tight areas because I wasn’t able to exactly nail my original ZERO mark on the doors since the marks were removed with the original pockets… I didn’t run the .0625 bit around the letters because I noticed I was off a few hundreds of an inch. That got me thinking that I need a different way to re-reference my pieces on the machine table should I ever need to come back and add/fix something in the future.