So the epoxy turned out not to be an issue but the depth was. I was concerned about that and decided to cut some pockets in a piece of test MDF with 3 different bits and 2 different depths so that I had a good idea of what I wanted to do. Oddly all of my test pockets were deeper than expected by .02 to .03.
Anyway, I wanted a .06 pocket to flatten the epoxy so I decided to create one file with a .03 and then another with .01 so that I could sneak up on the correct depth. But what I got was much deeer.
Here was my process
- cut test holes in MDF (thinner material, manually set Z). Used 3 bits.
- mounted final workpiece
- hit the tool change button. It asked for the 201 for some reason but I put in a 1/4 downcut bit.
- used bitzero V1 to set zero on the top of the wood even with the top surface of the pocket that was already there.
- removed bitzero and jogged to Z+6mm and then eased closer. It looked good.
- loaded job and hit start
- CM asked for the specified tool which was already in and the one I had set zero with.
- it used bitsetter to recheck and then started the job.
I could tell it was too deep as soon as sweepy got out of my way but I let it proceed.
Actual depth was closer to .14. When the job finished I jogged over into one of the pockets and jogged to Z+6mm and then slowly lowered to zero. You can see in the pic that it is barely above the surface, so if Z had been correct the .03 would have probably been about right.
I am not sure what happened there. I guess after that final bitsetter operation I should have checked the zero again. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the previous test job being thinner and having a lower zero, but I did readjust in step 4.
These are still sort of OK, the numbers are just a little too thick and some bad spots I didn’t cleanup from the V carve show through. I didn’t expect to go that deep so I wasn’t worried about them.
My next step was going to be a small vCarve operation with kid names in each one and then a coat of black epoxy and reflatten. I’m not sure these would be useable at that point but I will go ahead and do it for the experience.
All in all, it was OK for a first epoxy experiment. Waiting days between cuts sucks though.
