I am very new to CNC and just got my Shapeoko Pro a couple weeks ago. I am struggling to understand what bit/path I should use to carve some styles of text. The carving time seems incredibly high. The word Chesapeake Bay in my example is 93 minutes and its about 5 inches long. I think it is likely the font I am using but I am just hoping for some advice on how to handle things like this. I attached a picture of what I am talking about. I am willing to order whatever bit would be best but I just don’t quite understand where to go with it. I am using carbide create. I don’t really care about all the little details in the font, I just like the overall shape if that makes a difference. Thanks and I appreciate any advice anyone has to offer.
Hi @wboweiii,
Text with sharp angles and details like that lend themselves well to v-carving, i.e. specific toolpaths using a V-bit. Do you have one of those ?
A 60° V-bit would work fine here.
What material do you want to carve this into? For details text at small-ish scales, a tight grain wood will be required to hold the detail well.
If you don’t need all the details inside the letters then for sure it will be worth spending some time to clean-up the vector and remove them.
Can you upload the .c2d file for this project ? (for a check of your 93 minutes toolpath, and to try v-carving on that example)
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I’m still waiting for the question (?)…confused.
Try:
- converting the text to paths: https://carbide3d.com/blog/merging-script-fonts-in-carbide-create/
- Select all the letter outlines and Boolean union them
- delete everything except for the outlines which you want used when cutting
Also, check that your retract height is reasonably low
@Julien I attached the whole file. All I have is a 90 degree Vee bit but I will order a 60 no problem. As far as material it will be plywood for the first run but if it looks nice I intend to run it in an oak panel that I glued up. Perhaps at the size I am making this the times are just normal? I am just so new to this I don’t have perspective.
@RichCournoyer sorry if I was not clear but I am surprised by the lenght of time these are going to take to carve so I suspect I am doing something silly
@WillAdams Thanks I will try that when I am back in front of my PC in a few hours.
Thanks for the replies I appreciate it
Oops - Can’t upload the file its bigger than this forum will allow. I deleted some of my text and here is the file. The rest is just more words on the same outline
Smaller one for upload.c2d (1.5 MB)
Okay, select the grouped text:
ungroup it:
deselect what you want to keep as outlines:
if necessary, zoom in to deselect counters and small features:
and delete:
and the time reduces from 44 minutes to 30 minutes:
Thank you - I was thinking there was something I was missing but seems like I just need to spend the time cleaning these up so they carve faster/cleaner. This seems to confirm I just need to sit and clean them up. I appreciate it very much.
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