Trying to cut simple basic shapes

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

Is the machine mechanically sound? Esp. belt tension and the pulley set screws?

I’d suggest adding geometry around your shapes and cutting as a pocket down to tab depth or the penultimate pass — where possible avoid slotting and add geometry and cut as a pocket

Adding geometry to cut as a pocket with a finishing pass

One technique which is often suggested to avoid slotting is to add geometry around a part which one wishes to cut out and cut as a pocket down to tab depth — here’s one technique for that. In this case, the project is a bevel gauge which will be cut out of 0.0625" (~1.5mm) thick aluminum: [bevelgauge] Due to the narrowness of the angles, an 0.03125" endmill has to be used, so after importing and scaling the file (we will be cutting out one which is 3") we select the perimeter and offset it tw…