Letter carving or v carve

[JGSNMUR (Jeff)]

I have been asked to carve the name HENNIGAN in block letters NOT cursive on a 2x8x4 pine board that is one of the back boards of a bench I’m building. I have the 4x4 Shaepoko 5 Pro so working size is no issue. The actual text will probably only be like 3” or 4” tall by 24” long and only about .05 deep. I am going to cut it after I have stained said board so the raw pine underneath pops. Then I will seal the whole thing with polyurethane. My question is can that be done with just an 1/8 flat bottom end mill as just text in carbide create or does it have to be done in v carve no matter the bit. Or do I need to do a flat bottom and then a 60 degree bit the v carve way

[MadHatter]

If you use the 1/8" bit and just pocket the letters, they will have 1/16" radius rounded inside corners. If you are fine with that, you can do that.

If you do the v-carve with rest machining and remove the majority of the material with the 1/8" bit, then you can use the v-bit and get the sharp inside corners.

It’s up to you - or your customer - as to what look you / they want.

[mhotchin (Michael Hotchin)]

@MadHatter

If you use the 1/8" bit and just pocket the letters, they will have 1/16" radius rounded inside corners.

If you’d like to see what it would look like, you can modifiy your text to see what a 1/8" mill would actually cut:

Chamfer tight letters

How to convert a shape into the perimeter that actually gets carved by a tool of a given diameter. [image] For text, you’ll need to Convert to curves. The first step is you need to separate the Outside cuts from the Inside cuts. In this case, the only Inside cut is the center of the ‘e’. Here are the Outside cuts: [image] Now offset by the radius of the tool. For outside cuts, offset Outside, Inside cuts offset Inside. This basically creates the path that the center of the tool follows…

Since you are pocketing, the majority of the text is considered inside cuts.

[WillAdams (William Adams (Carbide 3D))]

At those dimensions, just using a 1/8" tool should work fine.

Using a V-carving with pocket-clearing will make the corners a bit crisper at the expense of a slight angle:

For such a shallow feature the stock will need to be uniform in thickness and the workholding done so as to not distort the stock at all.

[JGSNMUR (Jeff)]

I haven’t tried it yet, but what you show is basically what I ended up doing, only using a 1/4" endmill. If it works, then I am going to say it was pretty easy. If not well…

[Redlander (Tim Jones)]

@JGSNMUR

All the above advice is spot on, why would it not work?

There are several ways to achieve what you’re planning to do. Start with a 1/4” bit to run your pockets, and done. This leaves a slightly larger radius on the corners of the letters but at 3-4”x 24” that will suffice. 4” height ratios out better to the length of 24”.

Another is to use the 1/4” as above for the pockets and then run an 1/8” bit to reduce the radius of the corner of the letters for a sharper block letter.

This can all be run in simulation and you cans see the difference for yourself and even show the end user and they can decide which one the want.