How best to machine only part of a CC drawing?

How To
1

I have a complex drawing in Carbide Create that’s 12" x 46". Much of it is lines to be etched or contour cut. It’s predicted to be several hours of cutting time on a Shapeoko 5.

I’d like to machine just a 12" x 12" section of it to send for evaluation. Is there an easy way to have the machine just do part of the drawing? I’d rather not either air cut the rest (very slow) or manually have to edit the CC file down (very tediuous).

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

2

Tiling will chop the Y direction. That will cut down the manual editing, but not eliminate it.

Wait, if you’re only 12" wide then it will work. 12" tiles. :wink:

1 Like
3
  • Make a copy of the file.
  • Select everything and group it, so it behaves as a single element
  • Draw a rectangle to be the area you want to cut.
  • Select it and the design, Boolean Intersection