Help me understand V-Carve Tabs

[BHM (Dwayne C)]

Is the tab depth determined by the wood thickness or the cut depth?

Lets say I have a board that is exactly .5" thick. I want to cut through the board so I set my cut depth to say .55"

This would cut into my waste board so I set my wood on top of .1" rubber washers. My tab thickness is .1"

Some times, the tabs are cut through but I can not determine if it is my wood (plywood generally) that is not uniformly thick or uniformly flat.

*Question rewording… if my cut depth is lower than the wood thickness, should I increase my tab thickness accordingly?

[gdon_2003 (Guy Donham)]

The default tabs are too long and thick for me. I make mt tabs .125 high and .25 long.

Instead of squishy rubber try setting z on top of spoil board. That would limit cutting into spoil board.

The spoil board is called that for a reason. There is no point to saving your spoil board because it is designed to be spoiled. It is easy and cheap to resurface and/or replace. After all it is lowly mdf.

[BHM (Dwayne C)]

Thanks for the suggestion. Almost everything I make is cut through and I have become a huge fan of threaded inserts. Now I have learned to install my inserts about 4mm below the surface which allows me to resurface my spoil boards several times.

For the work I do, the washers work great. I also think I can hear my mdf cry a little when I cut it.