Here is a sign that I made for our house. Cut time was around 3.5 hours but I love the way it came out.
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Looks great! At first, before I could see the bottom (table?), I thought it was a V-Carve render.
I think we could get that carve time down next time.
I tried to attach more pics but (as a newbie) I was limited to 1 picture.
The sign is 24” diameter and 3/4” thick.
I’d love to discuss how to get the time down. I use 4 different bits for the project (60deg, 90deg, .125 end, and .25 end).
My biggest issue is consistency of the cuts (mostly the left side). I’ve made 13 of these signs, various names at the top, but when I zero the Z axis on the lower left the depth changes throughout the cutting area. Very frustrating!
Can you share your feeds and speeds for each tool ? we may be able to advise how far to push things to get the cutting time to something much more reasonable than 3.5h (30min tops, would be my guess)
Another possible issue is when there are several overlapping vectors in the design, it may not be immediately visible, but the CAM then generates redundant movements (did you see the machine going back to an already carved part at some point) ?
If you can share the design file itself, it’s probably the easiest to help us help you.
The issue of depth changing throughout the cutting area is likely due to the assembly of the machine, and flatness of the stock:
- did you surface your wasteboard ?
- do you have an opportunity to surface the stock itself before cutting ?
That should improve things quite a bit.
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I’ve watched most of the cutting entirely (a huge waste of time but I’m a bit of a perfectionist) there has never been any overlap cuts.
Sorry I’m still a newbie.
What is “surfacing”?
surfacing is making your extra wasteboard flat and perfectly parallel to your X axis
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Allright so probably your feeds and speeds are overly conservative. Can you share what values you used? Feedrate, RPM, plunge rate, depth per pass.
The uneven depths issue should go away if you surface your supplementary wasteboard, and possibly your stock if possible, because it may not be flat either
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I didn’t see your machine size, but, when I surfaced my wasteboard and supplemental wasteboard, I kept each pass to no more than .002. This added a few passes to get it completely flat, but it is really flat which has paid long term dividends.