So i looked and didnt really find my answer so i’m going to just post this question.
ive had the shapeoko for almost 6 months and once i put it together i never did any sort of flattening, just set it up and ran with it. in the beginning (as i was learning) i made some mistakes and put some mild grooves in the hybrid table MDF of my Pro XL.
in some of my projects (usually pine) i can see a cut depth difference along the Y axis (front to back). this may be due to the pine but i would imagine i want a perfectly flat surface to start with.
i went and bought a fancy Whiteside 6210 CNC Spoilboard Surfacing Router Bit, 1/4" Shank so my question is…do i flatten the hybrid table or just keep flattening sacrificial boards on top of it.
sorry if this has been answered already but i couldnt find it
thanks gang
Opinions vary here’s mine. I surfaced my hybrid spoil board and always zero to the machine bed
This eliminated cutting into it unless I do something stupid. I will also surface stock unless I am positive it is of uniform thickness. Surface super thin since you may need to tram and probably surface again. Truthfully either strategy works and you can do both
originally i read to zero to the bottom of the project piece and then i read to zero to the top. am i “correct” in thinking to zero to the bottom if i want to cut all the way through but to zero the top if i’m just doing engraving?
i guess, is there a downside to zeroing to the bottom if i now have a perfectly flat bed?
I don’t think that there is a downside to zero at machine bed
Key to engraving is a surfaced and trammed machine and consistent stock thickness. A perfect carve will require both. A 3d relief carve should take off a consistent couple of thousanths off the top but you don’t have that in a simple engraving… but your surfacing cutters can do it as well
so im standing in front of my machine and planning to flatten the spoilboard. because the router will only travel a certain distance on the x/y and not the entire way is this a mistake? what if i have a large piece that spans the “flattened” area and the non-flattened area?
am i better off removing the mdf and running them all through the planer instead?
just trying to keep from making a huge mistake and causing more issues
Yes, the typical way to flatten will result in a pocket because as you note, the machine can’t reach the entire surface of all of the hybrid filler strips — if you wish to use stock larger than that, it is a problem.
The alternate way to handle this is to flatten the entire surface by removing and flipping the hybrid filler strips, flattening them, and then swapping them back.
so with regards to tramming, i think i get it but i want to be sure thats where my issue is. i put together a quick tramming tool and here is what i see…its clearly nothing fancy and definitely not perpendicular but not sure it matters
wanted to post these before i started taking things apart. history shows that can tend to make things worse
feels like it is tilting to the front right
