i just purchased the Mc fly surfacing bit, i have bit zero 2. i want to surface my 4x2 Shapeoko 5 pro.
I always use the bit zero and it sets my X Y and Z on the board that i have clamped down
i have never surfaced the hybrid board, and was looking how to do it, i assume bit setter is enabled when i do this. I read somewhere that i need to make it bigger than 4x2 ,in design and DOC .02.
also is the tool path a contour or a pocket tool path, also what is the step over ?
if any one can help
.
You run the program as usual, but you need to remove the bit setter after you touch off on it.
I recently used the flattening file @SDGuy mentioned for the pro5 and it worked quite well.
I rapid to the SW corner, jog to the physical limits & then back off about 0.1" & set my lower left zero. I have the surfacing program set about 0.2" smaller than the physical limits of the machine.
Bit Setter disabled, I touch off to the top of the slats & set Z to 0.010". I change Z to take another pass.
I found that center was the highest on mine. By a LOT. I’d check center as well.
Keith,
the bitsetter must be switched off in CM, because the McFly does not have a cutting blade in the center to hit the switch. BitZero works IMO, usually beause my stock lately is rather thick so that the pull back of the Z axis after Z-zeroing on the BitZero exceeds the max.
Therefore I often use
One can use a contour tool path with a snake like design of paths, William recently described that prodedure somewhere here, I usually use a pocket tool path.
Stepover depends: if you need to remove some thickness the stepover may be almost the diameter of the bit, although one might consider a bit that removes some material like the GoldenGirl/GoldenBoy from CICWorkshop as first step, and for finer surface the McFly. I never remove more than 1mm (never even 1mm, rather 0.5mm) with the McFly or one of those anyways.
If one uses a small stepover, little cutting depth and rel. slow speed (not too slow: may burn!) an almost polished surface can be achieved. (toolpathes are still visible, so does not reduce the need of sanding)
For the 1.5inch surface cutter I recently used 1000 mm/min speed, 12mm step over, cutting depth of 0.75mm.
Sanding 80-120-220-300 took me one hour for 450x380mm stock on both sides.
(I recently had a patient who made a private library for 300k, he sands his pieces down to 3000 (yes, 3 thousand), he uses a dollar bill as sand paper.)
Don’t ask me how I learned about the burn marks with slow speed 
For folks who want to go finer there are 3M Finishing/Lapping/Microfinishing Films sold as “Micro Mesh” by various vendors (I use it on archery bows)
William: I wish I would know where people that use that kind of stuff got their patience from. I tried to get a dose of patience at the pharmacy, they said they do not have a truck big enough do deliver the amount I need. My wife told me the same. And she is always right, she says.
For me, it was model-making, and certain toys, in particular:
(of which I was always quite annoyed that while the logo shows diagonals, it was not possible to draw them consistently using the mechanism turned by hand)
Is that the first mass produced BNC??
CNC?
It was definitely one of the early grid drawing toys, not sure if it was first.
1st NC machine was a player piano. 
The Linewinder reminds me of a manual bridgeport / hand-cranked mill. I did know a couple of old guys that could get very close to a circle, or manually machine on an angle.
Looks like a creative kid, with those angled cranks, could whip up some gears that would make diagonal lines possible.
No… Bio-Numeric-Control!
Player piano 1895
Jaquard loom 1804
Please always remember Ada Lovelace:
There was an aspect to the mechanism which cause it to only want to move in integral increments — I actually bought one to replace mine, and keep it next to one of my machines…
