Increasing Bed Size?

Hi having learnt a lot in a short period of time with my Nomad I am now lusting after a bigger bed size and thinking of buying a bigger bed machine.
Is there a way to work with what I have to double the length of my bed size using some software trickery before I start spending more money please?
For example if I wanted to work on a 16 inch sign on an 8 inch bed?
thanks.

Well you could do tiling where you cut a section, say 1/2 of your work piece then you slide it to cut the other half but you need room to slide the work piece. Because the Nomad has an enclosure, you may have to cut a slot at the back so the work piece will pass through.

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It is also practical for many things to machine tiles sized for the bed and assemble them after machining. In cases where I do this, I try to include clean alignments between the pieces that get machined at the same time as the other features, whether it be fine alignment marks, tabs and notches, or something else. Depending on the requirements, the parts may be attached to a single large, unmachined backer for structural strength.

I have done a fair bit of machining for overheight parts by running parts that get stacked, and usually put 2 or more holes for dowels to align the parts at assembly.

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Would it be possible to take an 8 foot length by 4 inch wide and run a flower inlay down the entire length?

How does that work from a software point of view to get things lined up where one tile ends and the other starts?
I can take the back off the machine and make a groove or remove the back completely I suppose.

theoretically yes but you would do 12 tiles of 8in and you would need perfect indexing and levelling of the workpiece to make it work however in practice I would be surprised if one could. A small 16in piece should be OK.

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While you can do this by hand in CC, VCarve/Aspire capabilities is built-in.

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I quick search of this forum yields this with an explanation from Will on how to use CC to do this. Tiling questions/issues

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Brilliant now I am getting very excited thank you.

I distinctly remember a photo of a Nomad with a slot cut out of the back to enable this very thing — alternately, you can just remove the back plate or front cover.

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I remember you seeing it too :slight_smile:

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Figured I’d add my 2cents, @luc.onthego is basically saying the same thing I am about to mention. However I figured I’d mention how I do it with F360 or SolidWorks and Aluminum. I’ll model say for example an 6"x24" part. Set it up like others are explaining, then design in a 2nd Zero point for the 2nd stage of machining. Like an extruded cube at the far end of the piece that I can cut away later. So you zero it at the back of the machine for the first operation and as well machine a 2nd pt for zeroing at the front of the table. When the first operation is done, slide the stock further through (probably sticking out the back). Then re-zero the machine at the new feature, and begin milling from there, “rinse- lather-repeat” and cut away the zero feature after.

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