You learned the valuable lessons of mistakes turned learning. Being prepared to trash projects that didn’t go as planned is a must in our field. Always prepare for mistakes with material, that way you have backup just in case. If everything goes as planned on the first run thru and it’s all good, then you just have extra material for another project. I’m in rough country, so buying wood in bulk is easier for me, but the downfall is that I have to plane it so it has a smooth finish.
Planing and glue ups are my companions. Anyways, have you looked into maybe some of the finer tipped carvers? I’m talking about the 45 degree, 30 degree, and even the 20 degree carvers? These can be much more help on finer detailed works where you don’t want to have tool angle blowout. Designs sometimes suffer because we may not take into consideration how much of the side wood gets cut out from a vcarve. Then the next cut comes along and rips into the side of a previous cut making the lines side by side look crappy because of overcut and blowout.
If you do look into sharper point carving tools, also think about your desires for your type of work. If you are not going to have so much work with fine details then these sharper pointed carvers may not be for you. But if you would like sharper detailed work, buying these sharper degree bits would help for sure.
Learn and let learn is a motto to have as well. I have asked many questions about the CCPro and feel they were just easy questions, but, because I didn’t know the program as well, these simple design processes were not easily understood to me yet. We are getting there. Good luck on future designs and endeavors that may be profitable for you and yours.
Thank you for your response. Great information. I do not have anything finer than the 60° bit in my arsenal. But I till definitely look into purchasing a 45° or even a 30°.
Funny you mention planning and glue-up. I have plenty to really nice leftover pieces on my scrap shelves in the shop. Curly Maple, White Oak, etc. I agree; I think it’s time to get out the wood glue.
Those vcarvers are good when limited to the shank size and collets of 1/4. All of my vcarvers are fine points and I have every angle they offered for me to use. I have carved a Jack of Hearts and Jack of Diamonds on a board part of a project where the cards were 1.75 wide and 2.5 inches tall. They were both stacked and the finer details needed to be done in a sharper point carver. I tried the 60 degree and it blow out many parts of the cards.
Bought some new crush it clamps ahead of a big job. I knew they looked nice but I’m loving them. I keep nerding out and showing them off to the other maintenance guys who usually just roll their eyes.
A few styles. All will have color core plastic and wood. 0 done, something like 150 to go.
I couldn’t tell you the difference, honestly, but I can’t imagine a pro not including the cost of the same material. Mid winter is the sweet spot for our staff building and improving the property because guests are usually not here mid week. My hours are a lot cheaper than pro’s.
Everything we build has an element of volunteers too, mainly retirees. I’ll have some ladies hand paint the inside if the letters that are carved in wood. They love doing it and helping this place, saves me many hours and oramask costs.
We the up building a bunch of building for well below cost. People donate land for trees. Volunteers run a mobile mill on site and off. We trim out buildings and do flooring with our staff and volunteers.
To try an upsell on the plaques I made I used the NextWave Shark Tooth and a pen to write on the back of business cards that I attached to the plaques. The letters were too small for a Sharpie but the regular Bic pen worked well.
I tied the card on with a length of leather cord and then put each one into its own foam pouch.
Those of you reading my other thread will know that I was trying that Shark Tooth with an xacto as a drag knife. I haven’t gotten that working yet. Still trying though
I was thinking that maybe I had a picture of some of these finer detailed carvings and looking into my pics, I released that I didn’t. I have a pic of the cards on the bigger project, which was one of my earlier projects. Here is a close up view of the cards. Sorry the quality of the pic isn’t too good. No matter how I moved the lighting, it seemed to take more out of the carving then desired.
The cards were cut with the 45 degree carver. There could be improvements on these cards and the carving around it, but this carving was a first of the type. The person I made it for was happy with it and they didn’t want any stain on the wood. That was their call.
Anyways, I have gone out of state for some work and will be gone for a few more weeks. Not going to be able to take pics of any other carvings until I get back home. I’ll reach back out to you daveyJ and send you some pics of the finer stuff after I get back and settled back in.
Whoa! That is some intricately carved detail. Thanks for sharing these pics. I am assuming that is hard wood? I can’t imagine trying to do something like that in pine or plywood.
I’m going to invest in some bits, maybe a 45° or even a 30°. Looking forward to subsequent posts. Be safe, take care.
Easy cut, but I wanted a frame for a few pictures that would fit around the thermostat and clock in my shop. Cut from .365 plastic I had laying around with .25" plexiglass covering the pictures. I need to get two more pictures printed to put into the lower frames yet, but this got rid of the individual picture frames that were never straight and were mismatched anyway.
I did, 1/4" x 1/4" recess on the backside and then hot glued the plexiglass into the frame. Although in the interest of full disclosure, I cut the backside with a palm router rather than with the CNC. lol
