and since the tool with a bearing may not be used on our machines, the profile may be re-created with a bit of patience and some No Offset Contour toolpaths w/ appropriate tooling (and of course, if one has an appropriate radius tool, it could be used as noted above.
Thanks Will. I have already achieved profiles through freecad and imported the STL.
This thread said to share what we’d like to make WITH CCP, so my specific question was how to create a 3d profile that varies in radii
Perhaps a better example would be a 30caliber cutaway;
Make an oblong long radiused section with a cylindrical midsection, then two tight radiused reductions at the boat tail.
Sure, we could spend hours assigning toolpaths at 100 different heights for different layers, but that’s what we pay your program for. To build the basic model with flat, angle and round surfaces then do a reciprocating toolpath like a printer. Not ideal, but it suits most of my needs.
Again, the most expedient thing there would be to draw the profile, then import it into a 3D CAD program and rotate it.
Whether or no Carbide Create Pro can become a full-fledged 3D CAD program is a separate discussion — I’m just here to show folks how to make stuff.
Took a bit of creativity in the adding & subtracting of model components.
And it’s not an exact match, but the best-fit of primitive shapes (arcs & lines) -vs- “B” curves.
Will/Tod, I have a couple of real miserable wet and cold days ahead and I am going to get my head around these and hopefully get a profile that works for me.
So it can be done!? That’s the kind of use of the CCP 3D components I was suggesting, Tod1d! There’s a method to overlapping the angle&round components to arrive at a varied radius. I’ll have to play around more, but in my early attempts there was little hope. Thank you for proving the basic 3d modeling on this software is capable of doing more than we expect.
Oh. I think I figured it out. When I first saw it I thought you were using some feature of CC that I didn’t know was there but now I am looking closely at your example file …
You created those vectors in the screenshot just to point out which tool goes where, but they weren’t “functional.” Then when it comes to actually making the cut you use vectors that are just straight lines with contour cuts at various depths with the different tools to re-create the profile of the molding? Interesting. I wouldn’t have thought about that …