I am making some simple inlay cutting boards for Christmas gifts. All was going great, then as I was cutting a juice groove on one; like I had done on a few others just the day before, during the third pass the bit made a strange sound and began the left turn but it was about 1 inch before it was supposed to leaving a gouge in my cutting board and ruining the project. I was using a tool path that has worked fine before. I was taking it in several passes to eliminate any possible burn marks. It acts like the machine jumped ahead several lines in the gcode . It took a straight path like it should have but just not in the right place. By the time I hit stop it was about an inch and half into the center of the board totally ruining the board. To add insult to injury I had already cut the vcarve of the persons name and the plug and glued them in and cleared them off and they looked spectacular all I needed to do was cut the juice groove and I was done. Not a good day.
I appreciate any thoughts you might have on why this happened and if possible steps to make sure it never happens again.
That’s a painful failure mode for sure, you’ve got my condolences friend
My first thought would be belt skipping or something mechanical. The strange sound is what makes me think mechanical.
A contrived example could be:
The bit is getting dull over time and it hits a particularly hard spot in the wood. As it’s pushing through the material it can’t keep up with the instructions so it’s physically not as far along as you would expect before it takes a turn and blows through your hard work.
Unfortunately I don’t have much experience in wood so this is all just guessing. Others are sure to chime in with more actionable suggestions/information.
As for salvaging a botched job, I’ve got plenty of experience there
Maybe with this one you can pivot and turn it into one or those fancy wine and cheese platters that tend to have purposefully wonky shapes. Cut out the error and make something beautiful and unique
Or cut out a shape that’s meaningful in some way? State outline, team logo, etc…
If it’s entirely botched and you don’t want to deal with it, send me a message. I’ve been meaning to do some destructive prototying with a decent cutting board but don’t have the facilities to make them
@Unclejoe did the endmill just turn left and keep cutting at the same depth or did it go deeper into the board as well? If it drove down into the board it may be that the endmill came loose in the collet. If you were using a bowl bit to cut the juice groove it may not cut deeper since the majority of the normal cutting force is not downward. In that case it would pull to the side. If I’m correct in that assumption.
I thought i posted this reply days ago but found it sitting in my drafts folder. I found that the power cord to the router had become tangled in the assembly and that cause a physical stop I was not aware of. I was glad to know what actually happened and I have neatened and secured my wiring to prevent this in the future.
Thanks to all that replied
