working on an inlay…trouble appears the inlay plug is smaller than the female inlay. see pic.
I have attached the two files, and you can see the toolpath settings. The plug is not lining up with the pocket???
cross test.c2d (68 KB)
Cross plug.c2d (104 KB)
He’s using Inlay Mode, but the plug depth is 4.0mm, 0.012mm deeper than the pocket (3.988mm).
He should be leaving a glue gap as well.
but, what is causing the gaps around the cross? it looks like the cross is approximately 1/16" smaller than the female pocket??? Also, isn’t the glue gap synonymous with top gap…which i set at 1MM?
Measure the overall height & width of the female pocket. Is it exactly the same as designed?
It could be some slop in the machine or spindle making the pocket a bit too big, and the plug a bit too small. Because you have no glue gap, the plug bottoms out before it’s tight enough in the pocket.
so where do you set the glue gap?
subtract your glue gap from the female depth. Set your plug depth to something like 3mm or 3.5mm. First check the female sizes to see if it’s cutting oversize.
I have noticed that the pocket depth after cut is 1MM more than my setting. i.e, setting is 4MM and actual pocket is 5MM. why is that happening?
And it is happening on both the male and female sides…so i thought they would just offset.
and i thought if the plug and the pocket were about the same that would get rid of the gap.
How is the 30 degree V tool described?
Does that match the actual tool geometry?
What happens if you use a 60 degree #302?
Something didn’t quite look right with your socket and plug size, so I used a rectangle to measure them. I attached screenshots on what I got for measurements and how I measured.
The plug should be the same size as the socket but mirrored.
Could this be part of the problem?
i measured the cross on both the female and male parts…they are the same…2". but the male plug that i cut was shorter…about 1/16". i.e. the gap that shows up in the pic.
The only BUT…I did not mirror as i saw it as the same size either way.
The potential for different geometry is why I set up such files in a single file with the inlay or pocket on different layers.
If you select the object, it will tell you the size
The female pocket should be exactly that size at the top edge.
The male plug should be that size near the bottom as it’s being cut. Which is why I asked him to measure accurately both pieces.
I recently had an issue like this. I verified all of the parameters and pocket/plug size in the Carbide Create files. In the end, it turned out the tip of my 30 degree v bit had broken off. It was such a minor defect in the bit that I couldn’t detect it easily. However, once I installed a new bit, everything worked as it should.
As a side note, one of the reasons I chose Shapeoko is the total ecosystem, including this forum. Folks like Tod1d have help me immensely.
Back again…had to take the weekend off. Back at it yesterday and today…The female side was cut at 4mm max depth using a 30 degree vbit. I cut a number of male sides adjusting depth of cut (from 3.5MM to 5.1MM) and the bit (60 degree…although did not expect a good fit as the female was cut using 30 degree, but gave it a shot). nothing worked. It still seemed like the cross of the male was shorter than the female…although in the design they were exact. So, I finally made a 1/16" adjustment to the size of the male cross using 4MM depth of cut and 1MM gap. This finally seemed to work. I have no explanation. Anyone else have any ideas?
BTW…I have two other inlays that resulted in similar issues…1/16" difference. For those I filled with epoxy, and they turned out just OK, as attached,
The plug depth should be smaller than the Max depth on the female. There needs to be a glue gap so the male isn’t bottoming out in the female.
If it’s too loose & say, for example you want to make it fit 1mm further into the pocket. reduce the plug depth by 1mm, and increase the Top Gap by the same amount, 1mm. Now the carve is the same height, but it’s a little bit wider/bigger.
If you can take accurate measurements, you can calculate the amount to subtract from plug depth, and add to top gap to get the fit you want.
Accurately measure (with calipers) these 2 dimensions. And we can tell you precisely (or pretty close) the amount to adjust.
Here is the CC design. The cross measures 105.91MM X 177.81MM in the design and after the cut. The cut used a 30 degree vbit.
Cross.c2d (84 KB)
This is the female design and cut.
