First project progress

Hello everyone, I’ve been procrastinating since Jan about cutting something out. But here it is. I finally did it. It is a star with the letter B in it cut on 3/4" pine. I need to make the B smaller and then work on the edges. They are very rough and jagged. This is using the 201 bit that came with my Shapeoko XL. I had the router set at 3 and then took all the defaults in Carbide Create. I’m wondering if I slow the movement on the router some if that would help with the jagged edges. Well I will see if I can get this picture to load.

Thanks
Jim

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Maybe you already smoothed the edges in the pic but remember the #201 is an upcut and will leave the upper edge more ragged than a downcut bit. If you use a down cut bit and let it cut through to the spoilboard (with tabs) then you will not have ragged edges top or bottom. There will always be some fuze in places with pine. You are cutting with and against the pine grain with a star and with the “B”.

Good try. This is a good learning experience so you know what to look for next time in the preview so your work does go over the edge like the B did. But depending on what you are going to use it for it is usable. Now let your momentum build to the next project.

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Leaving a roughing clearance and taking a finishing pass will help a bit.

I’d suggest just using a V carve path for the letter though: https://docs.carbide3d.com/assembly/carbidecreate/video-tutorials/#v-carving

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While it will work, the F&S default in Carbide Create are completely wrong for the Shapeoko. For best results, you need to calculate the right F&S. To get acquainted with your new machine, I suggest you read the Shapeoko E-Book V2 prepared by @Julien and use his simple Spreadsheet to calculate F&S. It is built on his experience and that of many Shapeoko users on this forum and it will save you frustration for common problems and enable you to get better results faster.

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