I am curious how often everyone here resurfaces their spoilboard. I usually wait until I start noticing uneven areas or the surface is no longer flat enough for my work. I was wondering if most people just run a simple surfacing job when needed, or if you have a regular routine for it.
Also, do you resurface the whole board every time, or just the area that actually needs it?
I recently resurfaced my SO3 spoilboard after replacing it in July 2025. I had run a project with the new cutout tool path and it cut through to my spoilboard. There seems to be something about the cutout path that has not yet been explained about what to set to you get to the bottom of the material and no more. TBD
I use bottom of material about 90% of the time. So I rarely cut through my project and marr my spoilboard. The only time I use top is if there is just a vcarve path or other tool path that does not cut through. So try bottom of material in setup and try it. One caution is in Jog you can quickly go to X and Y zero and Z+6mm. If you use bottom of material be sure to jog off your material before doing the Z+6mm or you will crash into your project.
Measuring your material accurately is very important no matter where your Z zero is. I generally work up a project with a nominal thickness and before starting the project I measure the material secured to the spoilboard. Then edit the CC file and save and load that new file into CM.
I’ve done it once in a little over a year (I got my pro 5 in May of '25). While doing it, I realized the CNC needs some minor tramming… which I haven’t done yet. Instead I sanded down the board to take out the slight ridges (not recommended but it sufficed for my situation).
Recently the table took a major hit from a bad toolpath. But I’ve not replaced or resurfaced since. I just don’t need a perfectly flat table for the signs I make. My bad two cents.
Reading back over this, I realize this might not be the best advice 
I’ve resurfaced twice in the past 4.5mo and i need to do so again because the double-sided tape I use isn’t holding well in places, but that’s partially my own fault for not caring when i go into the spoilboard a bit. My thinking is that it’s there to be chewed up so I’m just not going to worry about it. I need to get a big sheet of MDF and mill replacement slats so I have a nice pile of spares for when i need to replace them but I haven’t gotten around to that quite yet.
I have mostly been using the top of the material for my projects, but using the bottom of the material seems like a good approach when the goal is to avoid cutting into the spoilboard. The reminder about moving off the material before jogging Z+6 is especially helpful. Measuring the actual material thickness before running the job is a good habit too.
Thanks for sharing your workflow.
It depends on how much the machine is running and what I’m cutting. I’ve had time periods where it got resurfaced daily. The longest I go is a couple weekends. But I am generally running it 35-45 hours a week and intentionally cut 0.010” into the wasteboard.