I have a part I designed with a nearly 2 inch tall vertical wall on one side. I can’t figure out how to machine it with the bits I have. When I seat my 201 or ball end mill, I get about 30mm or just over an inch of clearance. I can seat the end mill less deep but it doesn’t feel safe to leave the end mill sticking out so far as would be needed for my application. Is there a way to machine this? Maybe there’s a special bit that I need?
You need a long reach endmill which has a long enough flute for this, and the part geometry needs to allow cutting it — might need to flip and cut each side.
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I did a quick search and found this:
You have to be careful that your project can be cut with a longer bit and the Z retract up high enough to not run into the side of your project.
One strategy would be to form two halves and glue them together to make a double height. This may not be acceptable for what you are trying to achieve but it is one way to do what you want with the tools you have.
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My part is 48mm tall but the stock would be 51mm tall, if I have 50mm bit and 4 inches of clearance on the shapeoko pro…yikes that’s like 1-2 mm of clearance + how perfectly I seat the end mill…I hadn’t thought about that issue until now. Thanks!
Gluing it together should work for my application but isn’t ideal. I’ll have to figure out a two sided machining approach if I don’t want to glue it…hmm. For now I just want to prototype it so I guess I’ll try gluing and then I can challenge myself later…the cool thing about this is that I get fillets on the bottom now!
splitting the part in half was pretty easy and I think will solve the problem! I still have a 29mm vertical wall though and I can’t go much lower without the curves splitting into 3 separate parts…which maybe I should do. But I think the 201 can handle this fine.
I used sculpting block (it’s so dusty I don’t think I’m going to use that stuff again) to protype this, this evening. splitting it in half worked! Left is my attempt at making an ergo wrist rest (right is a prior simpler wrist rest). This is the third thing I’ve made on the shapeoko. Very excited. It needs some tweaking still though but I’m pretty happy with this so far.
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