In Carbide Create, Is it possible to use a taper ballnose for advanced v-carves instead of my 30 degree v-bit for my doing inlays in endgrain?
Some of the designs I’ve tried are rather intricate and they require me to go to a large end-grain board blank dimension. However, I don’t always want to have to make a massive board since my planer and bandsaw have a smaller capacity than I require.
Even with this larger dimension, with the 30 degree v-bit (1/4" shank) and a max depth set of 5-6mm, the smallest feature (1mm wide) stands nearly no chance because of the limited depth the tool will penetrate. I’ve considered going down to 20 degrees but that is not going to provide a life-changing amount of depth improvement in addition to the downside of it being more fragile and requiring me to slow down an already slow process.
I have the 6.2 degree taper ballnose from amana which I tried 6 months back but it failed so I decided not to bother again. Since the latest updates to advanced v-carve feature, I want to try this tool again since it’s angle is seemingly steeper on paper. However, before I waste another bunch of cash on failed inlay tests in my expensive hardwood which takes the best part of a day in my time to turn into an endgrain board each time, does anyone have an answer?
I think you can do this. A couple simple rules. No sharp corners on the design vector. Radii must be at least the radius of the tool being used. Offset the vector both inside & out by the radius of the tool. Use the inside offset for the female side, and the outside offset for the male side.
If you want the small details to cut at full depth, and your depth is 6mm, then the smallest detail you can have is 1.55mm. Any narrower and the tool won’t go full depth.
Even at full depth, the male side will not have the rounded top, so you also need to make sure the glue gap is at least the radius of the cutter. Or you need to sand off & round the tops of the sharp male details before assembling.
Carbide Create does not support tapered ball-nosed tool geometry, so one has to do the math/make adjustments as @Tod1d noted and cut on faith w/o a preview like with a keyhole tool/toolpath.
As for any new technique, do a test cut in some inexpensive bit of scrap first.
Remember back in High School Geometry class when they tried to teach you what the Pythagorean Theorem was and you probably sat there thinking to yourself, “this is dumb, when am I ever going to use this in real life.” There are some very useful Trig equations out there too that I wish I had paid more attention to and now find myself hitting the google to try to remember them.
I was one of those nerds that actually stayed awake in my math classes.
I laugh when someone posts about never using algebra/geometry/trig since high school.
My whiteboard almost always has some sort of math on it
