I have a project finished and ran it, however the bowl cut needs to be cleaned up a bit so how do I create a finish toolpath with the existing project? I have tried to highlight the toolpath and just add a finish toolpath but the project wont highlight, I am new as you can tell so can anyone give me step by step on how to do this?
What type of project is it? 2D or 3D?
What type of toolpath?
Can you select the vectors and use the same type of toolpath but lower the start depth so that it doesn’t spend time aircutting?
We don’t sell bowl bits, so can’t really advise on them, but @KevBarn14 did do a video:
Making a finishing pass in the current version of Carbide Create pretty much requires that one adds geometry so as to create a “Roughing Clearance”
Given the design:
assuming that one wants to create a rounded bottom perimeter using a 1/4" ball-nosed tool and to leave an 0.05" roughing clearance we would start by selecting all the geometry for the pockets:
and offsetting to the inside by the radius of the tool (0.125") plus the desired roughing clearance (0.05") for a total inset of 0.175":
Apply
This geometry should represent the flat bottom of the pocket — there are two ways to get an effective finishing pass for the bottom of a pocket:
- leave a roughing clearance uncut and cut with a different tool as a finishing pass
- do the math and ensure that the final pass removes a very thin layer of material
We will do the latter — if the specifics of the bowl bit were provided we could provide a different tutorial showing the former.
Using a #201 in hardwood the default Depth per Pass is 0.125":
in this case, the desired pocket depth is 0.45":
0.45/0.125 == 3.6
which yields a rather heavy cut for the last pass, instead trying for 4 passes we determine:
0.45/4 == 0.1125
so if we reduce the depth per pass to 0.112" we will get four full depth passes which will cut to a depth of:
0.112 * 4 == 0.448
leaving a roughing clearance of 0.002" and a final pass which removes just that thin layer:
We then go back to the Design pane and offset to the outside by the radius of the tool:
(probably to make this clearer it will be better to select the original geometry and put it on a hidden or locked layer)
Apply
Again, this wants a pocket cut to
depth - (radius + roughing clearance)
arguably one cut before the other, but that can be adjusted for:
Cutting this to a depth of 0.275" we move this pocket up before the previous operation:
and then adjust the now second operation to start at the bottom of that pocket:
and adjust Depth per Pass to make a single heavy pass and then cut the finishing pass thickness.
Checking the 3D preview:
we can see that we need to smooth out the perimeter — this will be done in a pair of toolpath operations — the first will use the current geometry to remove the balance of the material at the perimeter:
again, adjusting the Depth per Pass so as to ensure that the final pass removes a very thin thickness of material:
which fortuitously is the case:
0.45" / 0.04" == 11.25
We then offset to the outside by the roughing clearance:
Apply
which now previews as:
We can verify that the rounding occurs for the pockets by temporarily adjusting the Stock Thickness:
To apply this same principle to the perimeter we would need to perform similar offsetting, but in reverse:
Offset Vectors:
(that gets one a roughing clearance)
Then offset by endmill diameter plus 10%:
The two offset goemetries may then be selected and used for a Pocket down to tab height:
Then the original geometry may be selected and an Outside Contour toolpath used to cut the part free:
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