How do you set up properly for surfacing wasteboard?

What’s the proper way to set up for surfacing your waste board to tram, and then resurface?

Concerns:

  1. Do I remove the bit setter so it does not get in the way?
  2. How do I properly probe for zero? Do I put it at the corner of the bottom left waste board corner? Or Do I just jog max left and max front, and then set zero manually?
  3. I have S5P 4x4, do I sketch in F360 a 48"x48", extrude to the depth I want, or should I account for the rails on the side?
  4. I have the surface mcfly cutter, but after surfacing a piece of hardwood, it left me some lines after each stepover. (Reason I am trying to tram my machine) Should I use a different bit instead for surfacing?

My personal recommendation would be to tram before surfacing. In my case I used a piece of flat float glass and shimmed it on the spoil board for flatness and then adjusted the spindle mount using the SST mini tramming tool (not required, other approached work well). For what it’s worth - my 4x2 trammed out nicely with only very small adjustments needed in both directions.

On your questions:

  1. Yes - remove the bit setter (and remember to disable in the software).
  2. I zeroed on the left front as close as I could get to the corner. The key is to make sure your design file allows the fly cutter to overlap the edge of the spoil board a bit.
  3. Not sure of the details of F360. In CC I just made a pocket tool path that had zero at the top of the spoil board and had it take off enough to make sure the whole surface was touched. it took a couple of tries at ~20 thou. I used pencil marks to make sure I was getting the whole thing.
  4. mcfly worked great for me. I had the same marks until I did the tram.
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Please see:

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Generally the process is to resurface, tram and resurface again.

This is how I choose to create a resurface file in fusion. The bit setter will need to be removed. I’ve relocated mine and still remove it to be safe. I remove it after it had touched the bit off and before turning the spindle on.

Create a sketch that’s the size you wish to resurface. Factory boards are a bit longer than 48”. Extrude it to make it 3d. The extrusion height is not critical.

My zero is alway in the front left and ontop of the wasteboard. So I choose the front left top corner of the model as my zero.

Then I create a 3d pocket clearing operation. I use selection for bounding box and select the outside edge of the shape you wish to resurface. Then tell it to keep the bit center inside the box. Make sure you turn on ramping.

I make the stock size the same as the wasteboard except the z height. I make the z height .010” taller and make sure the model is on the bottom of the stock.

When you set your zero make your z zero what you want your finished wasteboard height to be and the set the appropriate x an y zeros. When you run it and it’s done your zero is now perfectly on the wasteboard.

Don’t remember where I got this. For us lazy people.

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I was just looking at this today and want to flatten my Pro XXL. Am I able to follow the same process? Is there a video to watch for removing the bitsetter? And is there a video to watch to tram the machine? I see comments on this often but wasn’t sure if it was appropriate. I learn better with a video sometimes than reading an array of opinions in the forum. Thanks!

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