Flatten your waste board

CNC Machines Shapeoko 5 Pro
1

I just got my 5 pro 4x4 setup and I have cut some projects, but I have not flatten my waste board. Should I have flatten the waste board first thing?

2

I would. I found after building the machine the wasteboard surface wasn’t parallel with the gantry. They were off about 1mm in some areas, so my surfacing maybe took 1.2mm off the entire surface.

I ran a 4x4 pocket with ramping and then following it with a contour path on the outer edge all with a 1-1/4 surfacing bit I bought on Amazon. I did remove the BitSetter after the job started and then re-installed it when it was finished. Only took about 10min overall to surface the machine.

3

Have you checked the tram to see if it is out of square? Did you notice uneven engraving? I ended up having to .02 of shim to get the nod out, lots of good information in the forum.

4

You should check this before you surface the entire table however you will need to surface at least a 12" square area to check the perpendicularity. I just used a piece of MDF mounted on the table, surface it and then trammed it, I was out .02 in Y axis. I shimmed that out and resurface the MDF again and got it within .001. Then I surfaced the entire table.

5

Some folks do, other folks don’t until the MDF is chewed up — depends on what sort of stock and work one is doing.

See:

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6

It definitely depends on how level and square your machine is after assembly. Mine was perfect after the setup so I’ve never surfaced mine.

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7

Thank you Guys, I will start to work on these suggestions.

8

I surface mine whenever i decide to booger things up, I am retired so i do have a little time to use unwisely. Stay out in the shop and have fun, or go back in the house to see what your next adventure will be.

9

I surface before tramming. If tramming is out you will feel little ridges in the surafced atea

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10

I have bought a IDC Woodcraft 1.25? flatten bit. After watching a video on how to use it Garret says to start the cut out side of the surface that you are flatten. Correct me if I am wrong but I don’t think we can change the starting point of a cut in CC, maybe only in CC pro. I am worry about using that bit because it will not cut going straight down to start the cut.

11

You would need to manually draw up the toolpath as open geometry — see:

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