I have a sheet of 0.5mm brass which I’ve fastened to the bed with double sided tape. I’d like to cut strips of varying width one by one depending on my need.
Let’s say I cut a 2mm wide strip using a 1mm end mill at the front of the sheet. In CC I select No Offset - cuts great no problem. Now, I’d like to cut a 3mm strip out of the same sheet in the front. In CC, I draw a line 3mm from the last line but here’s the problem - I need to compensate for the cutting width of the 1mm endmill.
What would be a quick way to adjust for this so that I can bang out different widths one by one?
I would probably do this visually by drawing a 1mm wide rectangle and putting the geometry in the center of that, then just draw in the widths as you cut them and reposition the (grouped) rectangle for each cut.
Thanks Will, so can I safely assume that the 1mm width of the rectangle is actually the exact width of the cut? What I mean is does a 1mm end mill leave exactly a 1mm cut width or is it a tiny bit more?
Also, in CC, how does one draw a perfectly vertical or parallel line if the snap to grid option is deselected?
Not sure but if you hold down the shift key while making a line I think it goes straight. You could always turn on snap to grid and draw the line and then just move it where ever you want it after creating it. Either use the polyline tool or 4 separate lines and then use boolean to join them. As long as they all touch you are good. If you were a little short you can use the node edit tool or the join vectors tool to get a closed vector.