Machsupport Forum
General CNC Chat => Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) => Topic started by: Tweakie.CNC on June 08, 2008, 07:28:29 AM
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This relief was routed in oak 2.5 mm deep using a 3 mm diameter single flute cutter. The width of the sign is 350 mm which is the maximum size I can handle with the X - Axis. Longer signs have to be mounted sideways ( Y - Axis ) and cut in stages. This is the nameplate for a 'Beach Hut', which is a very appropriate name, don't you think ?.
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At first glance I thought you were making a time machine. Looks like a job well done.
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Another plaque for Art's stairwell perhaps ?. Neptune and Gemme / Gemme and Neptune, well maybe not.
This plaque is approx 150 mm x 190 mm and was cut in teak to 7 mm maximum depth. The cutter was a 3 mm diameter ball nose running at 3000 rpm and with a feed rate of F300 it took approx. 3 hours to complete. (The finished plaque has been gloss varnished and it was difficult to get a reasonable picture because of the reflections.)
The image is called 'Gemme', and this can be downloaded from Martin De Roode's website at http://engraving.majosoft.com/html/perfect_pictures.html.
I have posted my G-Code for this project if anyone is interested in cutting this plaque themselves. (If you use a high speed spindle then the feed rates can be increased considerably but to avoid overloading the cutter, reduce the feed rate by 50% or so for the first cut then reset to the full rate for the remainder. The X and Y zero is dead centre of the blank and Z zero is with the cutter just touching the work).
Happy routing.
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Good job Tweakie. ;)
Brett
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This is one of the sample tool paths from the 'Vectric Cut2D'. It makes a very nice job but there are so many unnecessary and time consuming Z moves on such a simple plaque that I really wonder how well it will cope with a complicated design.
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Some more of the Vectric Cut2D samples, cut in MDF.
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This is one of the sample tool paths from the 'Vectric Cut2D'. It makes a very nice job but there are so many unnecessary and time consuming Z moves on such a simple plaque that I really wonder how well it will cope with a complicated design.
Nice work, folks. Tweakie, may I ask how large the "Rocket" plaque is and how long it took with the (what size) cutter? I'm interested since I'm thinking of purchasing that for myself.
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Hi Budman68,
Size of MDF is 290 mm x 100 mm, size of 'Rocket' pocket is approx. 170 mm x 60 mm.
Cutter used was 3.5 mm diameter.
Total time taken for Rocket and Wheel approx. 2 .5 Hours. ( I use a low speed spindle ).
Tweakie.
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Wow, you weren't kidding, that is quite a bit of time for that size, indeed.
Thanks for the info - :)
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Hi Budman68,
Now that I have had more time to trial 'Cut2D' and to be fair to Vectric - I conclude that the excessive time to pocket the 'Rocket plaque' is mainly due to the feed rates and 'ramp plunge' rates set in the example as I am pretty sure that it was intended to be made in metal not MDF. Secondary is the high number of closed loop tool paths caused by Vectric's pocketing algorithm. I just increased the Mach3 feed rate to 200% and started cutting.
I would be very interested to hear what times others have for machining these examples.
Tweakie.
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I would too as well as I indeed would be cutting into metal.
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I had bit of a go at the Cheese Board back in February ( http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,4314.0.html ) and not really having learn't my lesson I have now had a go at the Bread Board.
Now, will she think that the mystic symbols have improved it or not ?.
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lol! Very good, sir, I think if she's anything like my wife, she'll lower and shake her head and walk away mumbling about something like "that stupid $%&* -*&^%-*&^%.......etc.... " ;D
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Your a glutton for punishment. My smooth talking was stretched to it's limit on your last project. It's nothing short of a miracle you still even have a router. Or a cheese board. Or even a wife. Your gonna need somebody like Johnnie Cochran, or Robert Shapiro before it's all said and done.
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Sam, your a d*** mess. ;D
Brett
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Replying to the questions about the samples used in Cut2D.
I did some work on this program when it was in Beta, in fact the loco wheel and con rod are my files that Vectric asked if they could be included.
Don't know who supplied the rocket file or if it was to be for wood or metal.
The loco wheel and conrod were done for metal, can't remember the time for the first operation of the wheel but the latter one, the spokes it took us 1 hour 13 minutes to cut but I dropped a goolie as I cut a blank out of stainless steel instead of mild steel and when on site at Leicester testing the new Sieg KX1, only a small mill, it was too late to do anything with it other than drop the feeds and speeds down to save the cutters.
Having said that I thought it did a marvelous job to cut stainless on a small machine like this.
Some things I noticed with the program that was reported back to Vectric were wasted moves which they were going to look into. The worst was it sets a default Z hight to about 10mm if in metric and raises the cutter to this hight after every cut. It then sends the cutter back into the cut at Z feed rate which for metal can be slow. In our case 10mm at 70mm / min just to get back to the top of the work and then to go another 5mm to get back to where it started before it puts the next cut on.
That's a lot of air time.
We compromised after the test cut by setting the Z clearance plane to 2mm which made a lot of difference.
I feel that it's all a trade off against ease of use and cost compared to a optimised toolpath.
I have to cut a load of washer like blanks out of a sheet of plastic and programmed this up in Cut2D last night, cycle time for 24 out of 10mm thick Tufnol is 36 minutes which I find acceptable as I'm doing something else anyway.
I may have been able to shave a few minutes off this job in another program but it would have took a lot longer then the 5 minutes it took to get the code out in Cut2D.
John S.
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Hi John S,
Thanks for the information.
Tweakie.
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One of Vectric VCarve pro's test examples cut in MDF.
Quite scary to watch this cutting as the depth of cut and loading on the spindle is very high. The finished work however, is a pleasure to look at and a credit to VCarve pro.
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Another good job Tweakie. Those guys over at Vectric are great and very sharp to boot.
Brett
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That's a beauty, nice work...........now to save my pennies for Vectric V Carve - :P
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It's a lot of pennies Budman68 and after what I did to her breadboard I am not sure she will even let me buy it.
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How many pennies would one need ?
RC
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A pot full RC, but well worth it if needing this kind of software. Some of the others are up there.
http://www.vectric.com/WebSite/Vectric/products/purchase.htm
Brett
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And a big pot at that.
If you live in the UK then 35,132 pennies might just do it.
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:D damn pennies........
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Another sample from VCarve pro this time with the carving filled with sandings in the top pic and wax in the bottom pic.
Cut in thinner stuff and filled in any colour these would make nice coasters.
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Another picture of Gemme but this time with less reflections and the tool marks are now visible.
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Another piece of MDF cut 4 mm deep. Overall size approx 350 mm x 300 mm.
Sorry but I posted here the routed image of a Company Logo which is, of course, subject to copyright and I realize that I should not have done so.
If you happened to see this image please erase it from your memory.
Sorry once again,
Tweakie
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VERY NICE Tweakie,
Is the Harley design included with the software package ?
Or did you get it elsewhere ?
Thanks,
RC
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I downloaded the Harley logo from here:- http://www.logotypes.ru/
(I am a bad boy).
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Aw.. you ain't that bad. That is a cool site. They have the logo's for all of my favorite BEER ! But I cant open any after download. They are .ai files. Adobe Illustrator or something. How do I go about opening the ones I want ?
Later, I will learn how to create the .tap files.
Thanks Tweakie,
RC
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Hi RC,
Yes you are right the files are stored in Adobe Illustrator format. I am lucky and have a friend who's work computer uses Illustrator and she converts the files to bitmap for me (during her lunch break, of course, not during working hours - well I believe her anyway).
Tweakie.
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These were cut 4 mm deep in pine (smells beautiful whilst being cut). Incidentally it is a lot more difficult to compile a word with just one letter upside down than you might think.
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Just found this in the garage, I thought it had been dumped. It is the test sample I used for cutting signs that are longer than the working area of the router table. This was compiled with the Script font within the Mach3 write wizard and was cut in two stages. It was stained to make the characters more visible.
Come on all you guys, the idea of this thread was for YOU to post pics of items YOU have routed, it is not just for my stuff.
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Don't really want to post my pic's as the router has been busy this week cutting circular gear blanks out of Tufnol [ phenolic] sheet 24 at a time
and when you have seen one washer you have seen it all >:(
Got to do a plaque for my brothers dog this weekend but waiting for him to supply the material.
Only pic's to hand are these.
(http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk/files/engraving2.jpg)
And this which was done in brass as a joke, it's the name of a village in Wales and this is a copy of the station sign.
(http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk/files/llanfairpg.jpg)
.John S.
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Hi John S,
Brilliant work.
What did you use to fill the signs ( black stuff) please ?
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Just black paint in an aerosol, sprayed on and wiped off whilst tacky with solvent. The brass plate was cleaned up with fine wet and dry when the paint had dried, nothing fancy these were not jobs as such but demo pieces to put on the display stand that goes to shows with the various machines.
John S.
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No everything turns out as expected - this little item was intended as a butter mold but a mistake in the programming made the recessed knights into raised knights. It is now just a curiosity.
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Well, I don't really do any woodrouting but I guess I can add some pics of the parts I do make. These are some of the things I've made and engraved for people. I have to do small items as I only have a taig mill which is the perfect size for the items I do. Some keychains, guitars parts, things like that-
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Some more-
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Nice work Budman68
I don't think my machine is up to cutting metal but I may give it a try. Did you use any coolant or just spray mist ?.
Tweakie.
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Thank you sir, actually neither, I use an air pump for an outdoor pond to keep the cutter/engraver cool and the chips clear so no chip welding occurs.
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Brilliant - I will now have to try and see if an air pump will work for cooling the cutter and plastic when I cut Lithophanes. If it does I can increase feedrates and reduce the machine time. I had never thought of using airflow but it seems obvious now you have said it.
I am learning lots from you guys, please keep it coming.
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Tweakie,Budman,John S
Job well done guys.looking forward to seeing your upcoming projects.
bill
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Hi Bill,
Thanks for the compliments - now it's your turn to post a picture of what you have done.
Tweakie.
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This was cut some time ago into a piece of scrap pine, it's a bit furry so the cutter was perhaps not so sharp.
I have been unable to locate the DXF or G-Code to make a better example to show you - so this will have to do !.
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Have you seen the wonderful wood routed panels on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/angelicdiablo/2601479294/ They apparently took 4.5 hours to route with a 0.125 inch ballnose using the ShopBot router.
Vector Art 3D have an evaluation version of their software at http://www.vectorart3d.com and a couple of sample files to cut.
I could not resist downloading their software and giving it a try this morning and here is my first attempt in MDF. Somehow VectorArt manage to remove the tool marks from their examples, perhaps I would get better results in hardwood as MDF is such awful stuff anyway. This example is approx 150 mm in diameter by 4 mm deep and took me approx. 45 minutes to complete.
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Another of the Vector Art 3D samples. This time smaller (10%) stepover and harder wood (ash, I think). Much better results but much longer cutting time.
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absolutley beautiful, my friend- :)
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This is a retry of a previous example - this time with a hardwood. Although a little sanding will be necessary the results are considerably better.
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Can't argue with success, and that's just gorgeous. I'd be making medallions in my moulding all over the house....lol!
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Here's the V Carve screenshot for the plaque for my brothers dog that recently died.
Still waiting for the lump of oak to carve it on.
(http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk/files/sophie.jpg)
John S.
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Hi John,
I would really like to see a picture of that when you have carved it.
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Hi John,
Beautiful work did you use a free cad program for all these or just one free try from vectorart3d and another cad program that you purchased somewhere else? I'm shopping for cad programs with $0.00 in the kitty for toys :'(
Keep up the great projects!
Glenn
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It's mid afternoon on a hot summers day here in the UK. This is for all you guys with a thirst.
Cheers !!
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Hi Tweakie,
It's a cloudy Sunday morning here in the eastern US, but I would almost skip church for one of those ! :D
Oh...and the woodwork is pretty too. ;)
RC
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Ah yes, the liquid lunch, I know it well....... ;D
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This sign from the Vectric VCarve pro examples took 15 minutes to cut ( not including the time it took me to change my trousers after a straight plunge heated the v-bit to red heat and could easily have caused a fire within the dust extraction ). To anybody else cutting this plaque - Use caution with the feed rates that have been set in the example - I had already reduced them to 30% within Mach3.
The end result is again a credit to Vectric and their wonderful set of programs. Like Budman68 said earlier 'save your pennies for this software' it's brilliant stuff.
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Another Fleur, this time in mahogany and ready to be incorporated into a piece of furniture.
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Just killer, my friend. Now seeing the detail, what size and shape of cutter/s did you use? Are you doing any toolchanges?
Just beautiful- :)
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Sorry, I should have posted full details with the picture.
There were no tool changes and the cutter was 3.5 mm diameter as the one on the right in the picture here :- http://www.flickr.com/photos/22267456@N05/2547381165/
However, I reground the end to make it more of a 'ball nosed shape' ( this took some time to do as the cutter is solid carbide and I do not have a diamond wheel ). The feed rate was F450 and the spindle speed was 3000 rpm. I took approx. 1 hour to cut.
Thanks to everyone for looking at my postings, I hope they have been of interest.
Tweakie.
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Very nice again Tweakie! Bravo!
Brett
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Wow, a 450 feedrate? Do you by anychance have any video? I'd love to see that in action!
Thanks again for the details!
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Don't get too excited Budman - I work in millimeters not Inches.
(The G-Code had a F300 feedrate and this was increased to 150% within Mach3)
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here any works executed in my machine ;D ;)
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/558637512LYGHjH?start=140
(http://thumb11.webshots.net/t/59/759/3/93/13/2604393130101084211SsdRFQ_th.jpg) (http://good-times.webshots.com/album/558637512LYGHjH)
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You have certainly made some wonderful stuff there Jack.
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Very nice looking work, Jack, thanks for sharing - :)
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Not strictly speaking Routing but more like Profiling. I thought you might like to see what happens when making wooden gears for wooden clocks and I get the tool lead-out in the wrong direction. As my old school reports used to say "Could do better".
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More wooden gears for wooden clocks.
These little beauties have been profiled in one pass from 3.5mm plywood. A bit furry when cut (the plywood always seems damp this time of the year) but they soon clean up.
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A few more. Experimenting with different tooth forms and diametral pitches.
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Looks like excellent work, my friend.
Are you using a software to draw these up or are the pre-prepared dxfs?
Dave
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Hi Dave,
Have you started drinking Guinness now ?.
Some of the profiles have been created using the online Gear template generator at http://woodgears.ca/gear_cutting/template.html and some have been created using GearDXF from Forest Moon Productions at http://www.forestmoon.com/Software/GearDXF/. The tool radius offset function and subsequent GCode was created using CamBam at http://www.brusselsprout.org/CAMBAM/download.htm.
It's all free stuff just waiting for you to download.
Best regards.
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Have you started drinking Guinness now ?.
:D ughhh, no sir, that stuff would give me rot gut for sure, just way too heavy of a beer for me.
Thanks for putting up the links, I'll have a look around over there- :)
Dave
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While I still had a small piece of plywood left over I thought I would try this - they almost fit perfectly. (If I had a job I could be dangerous).
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Close enough! Paint a picture on them (or route a pic!) and start selling them - ;D
Dave
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FOR SALE
4 piece jigsaw puzzles - not too difficult - would suit adult with a mental age of 4 months.
Offers invited
(it's a joke and no offense is intended)
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lol, perfect ;)
Dave
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I am back on the clock gears again but I have learn't (lesson 1) that not all plywood uses glue that is strong enough to stop de-lamination when cutting fine detail.
The escapement wheel on the right was just a test, as in practice it would be made from 5 ply not 3 ply and certainly a lot better quality plywood.
The wheel on the left was cut from 'trafolite' (I really love this stuff) but it was held to the table with low tack double sided sticky and it moved on the very last cut (oh bother I said). I tried stronger adhesion tape but the next wheel, which cut perfectly, broke whilst I was trying to prise it free from the table (oh bother, again). The second lesson learn't was that I need a selection of double sided tape with varying adhesion properties.
Thought you might like to see these pictures anyway - even though they are rubbish.
Tweakie.
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Neat Tweakie,
What is the dia. of the part ?
RC 8)
Maybe plop a coin down for reference next time ? ;)
JAT
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The overall diameter of the wheel is 60mm.
Good suggestion about the coin - I will try to remember to do that.
Tweakie.
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Thanks Tweakie.....and does the puzzle come with instructions.....with an illustration of the solution ?
I'd like to give a few as Christmas gifts..to my boss and some of his friends. I'm afraid they would go nuts without the docs. ::)
RC 8)
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Hi RC,
Would this be OK ?.
Tweakie’s Jigsaw Puzzles Inc.
INSTRUCTIONS
Carefully remove all the pieces from the box and arrange them as shown in the diagram. Slide each piece, one at a time, in the direction of the arrows – lifting to engage the tabs - in the corresponding cutouts. The finished puzzle should have no gaps and be perfectly square in shape. Enjoy.
WARNING
This puzzle should not be given to children under the age of 20 years and even then supervision by an adult may still be necessary. Do no allow the parts to be eaten as it will spoil the puzzle and make it difficult for others to complete.
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That should do nicely......providing they are SUPERVISED ! :D
Might also mention a "Choking Hazard".
Some of these guys get their foot in their mouth and choke on it regularly. ;D
Thanks Tweakie,
RC
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Teak, being a particularly oily wood, does not take too kindly to double sided sticky tape - so I thought that the vac table would hold it better. Unfortunately the teak blank was not flat enough and moved during the first (particularly savage) cut. Luckily the through hole (just below the letter E) can be easily filled and the job was completed on the reverse side using double sided sticky tape after all. Let this be a lesson to me.
This is nothing special but I thought you guys may like to see the photo's.
Tweakie.
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A really silly thing.
First the engraving in Trafolite then profile cut to shape. Pocket milled the pencil then inset the piece.
Has anyone done anything more useless than this ?.
Tweakie.
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Finally got the sign for my brothers dogs grave.
Name and layout done in VCarve, angel imported from a Dover clipart book
(http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk/files/sophie1.jpg)
John S.
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That is beautiful John. My complements on your work.
Tweakie.
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Thank you Tweakie but in truth is all down to software, all I did was press the big green button.
John S.
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Agreed, VCarve is an amazingly easy software but YOU put the design together and as simple as it may be, it's just beautiful and very very thoughtful as well - :)
Dave
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Teakie, how did you do the filling in the letters?
Dave
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Hi Dave,
I assume you mean the pencil.
The tag is 'Trafolite', which is an engraving laminate - this one is white on the outside and black in the middle, you just engrave through the outer layer and bingo. Its available in all colors and color combinations. It must be known by a different trade name in the US.
Regards, Tweakie.
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Oh, I see, it's a laminate engraving type material. Gotcha, that makes complete sense now.
It looked like it was all leveled on the surface, hence the reason I thought it was inlaid ;)
Nice work-
Dave
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This stuff is the other way round - black on the outside and white in the middle.
Tweakie.
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lol, great sign, and yes, I'm very familiar with the stuff as use it quite often as well.
Dave
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OK I have been playing in the wood pile .... actually with Aspire here is what I came up with
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Great stuff here guys. ;)
Tweakie, I have to make a sign like that. Stinking riot is what that is. ;D
Love it,
Brett
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As always - that's beautiful work Kent.
Tweakie.
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Seems I'm a little late in this post, but I'd like to get some pictures up.
The first is red oak, the second, pine
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Nice work.
I love the CNC mallet in the background. ;D
Tweakie.
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when all else fails i turn to percussive maintenance :)
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nice stuff!!
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Do you know, I have been doing 'percussive maintenance' for years now and I never knew what it was called.
Thanks. ;)
Tweakie.
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Hi Tweakie, I'm an absolute beginner at all this. I thought for my fist wood cut I'd try your nice gemma in an MDF just to see hows things worked out. I loaded my nice new 3mm ball nose cutter, set my spindle speed to 3000 as suggested, then loaded gemma into mach 3. zero'd everything. touched on the workpiece with the cutter and zero'd the Z axis. Then I run the code.
Bang. the tool dived to 6mm below the surface of the MDF and the poor old thing couldnt keep up with the feed rate (300) and snapped within 3 seconds of travel.
So, what did I do wrong ?
George
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Not quite sure what went wrong George.
I know that MDF is horrible stuff to cut compared with hardwood as the tool clogs up instantly. I did suggest reducing the feedrate for the first cut to reduce this problem but I must admit that I have never tried to cut the Gemme plaque in MDF.
Perhaps two passes at 1/2 depth each may be the answer.
Tweakie.
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Thanks for that, Yeah I did see you reccomendation to reduce the speed for the first cut but wasnt sure how to do that.
However I did find a useful command in CAMBAM which was 'level first' I selected this for another test job and that seemed to be a bit better.
I've a lot to learn, I have built a very nice router bed 1.2mtrs x 600mm using twin ball screws on the x axis. I opted for a 1.5kw spindle motor and it seems to be fine. I will admit I'm strugling on cut speeds, rotaional spindle speeds, tool diameter and a whole host of other things. Guess I gotta learn to walk before I run!
Thanks
George
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GEORGE,
Nothing will beat experience. Start keeping some notes on what you did. Cut depth, spindle rpm, and feed.
Suggest you just try a few experiments ( plunge cut, climb mill on edge, trough the material, etc ). Start with the end mill cutting no deeper that half it's diameter and pay attention to the chips.
I will note that watch out for the small mills, especially as you go below the 2 mm. You can snap them in a heart beat, especially if there is any backlash in the system.
RICH
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Hi George,
Any chance you could post some pictures of your machine, would really like to see them.
Tweakie.
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At last I have got a short break from the laser, acrylic profiling and can return to working with some real wood.
This relief is approx. 200mm x 150mm and was cut into a piece of Teak. The GCode was created with DeskProto from an .STL file posted on the Zone. Total machining time was about 130 minutes with a 2mm ballnose and 0.25mm stepover.
Tweakie.
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Photography is definitely not my strong point as the previous picture really does not do any justice at all to the work Mach3 is capable of producing. I have given the wood a bit of a polish - and this picture is only marginally better but it does perhaps show a bit more detail.
Tweakie.
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Looks great Tweakie, as usual.
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Obviously I would need to make a lot of these to justify the cost of the software but this only took minutes from drawing it on the screen to having it ready for a coat of satin varnish using Vetric's VCarve Pro.
It was cut in Teak in three passes and there is visibly a slight variation in toolpath which is probably due to the backlash in my Z axis but it is a free gift to one of my neighbours who thinks it will do just fine. :)
Tweakie.
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make a lot of these to justify the cost of the software
Tweakie,
Couldn't Cam Bam do that easily also?
RICH
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Hi Rich,
Perhaps it can, I am not really sure.
I used to use CamBam (the free version) and that did not support automatic V Carving from TTFonts whereas with VCarve Pro it is only a couple of clicks and the toolpath is complete and pasted to Mach - no need to consider multi pass as this is taken care of automatically from the tool selection.
Perhaps I am biased because it took me a long while to save up for this software but, compared to CamBam, it is just so easy to use it is untrue.
Tweakie.
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Tweakie,
I guess it comes down to what each software was created to do. Idealy one would like the software that "does it all" since we explore doing different machining tasks
over time. Along with the do all software comes the price tag. Very difficult to justify. You just can't win. I am playing around with CamBam....still have 10 trials left.
Gad you found the tool to make your work easy,
RICH
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I guess it comes down to what each software was created to do. Idealy one would like the software that "does it all" since we explore doing different machining tasks
over time. Along with the do all software comes the price tag. Very difficult to justify. You just can't win. I am playing around with CamBam....still have 10 trials left.
So true. :)
Tweakie.
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Thanks to Zasti for the ‘heads-up’ on this one http://hobbycncart.com/forum/30-35-6808-16-1332785979 - a new, free, engraving program which supports ‘V Carving’ http://home.comcast.net/~sskroch/Fengrave/fengrave.html
The program works just fine with WinXP and the GCode produced is excellent using Mach3.
This is just a test sample, to try it out, which, I think, shows that it can produce results to match the commercial VCarve programs.
Tweakie.
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Thanks for the link Tweakie. Seems like a nice freebee.
RICH
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NICE find Tweakie, thanks !
Russ
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My pleasure Rich & Russ.
Incidentally it supports all the single line stick fonts as well as the Windows .ttf fonts (they have to be copied to the F - Engrave fonts folder).
Tweakie.
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:),
Russ
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Tweakie,
That was soft pine or spruce.
Here is more in apple. Hard stuff, little bit of burn, cheap router bit.
One normal V-Carve and one Flipped w/border.
Don't quite understand all of the "settings". Did you see a help file anywhere ?
Thanks again,
Russ
:)
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Hi Russ,
Looks like you are doing just fine without a help file ;D ;D
Scott has said that F-Engrave is not yet perfect and I understand that the help file is still work in progress.
Tweakie.
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Hi Guys,
I must admit that I have never tried 'relief routing' before but seeing Russ's excellent work I just had to give it a try.
This is 270mm x 50mm and made from Old English Oak (using GCode produced with the free program 'F-Engrave' mentioned earlier). The tool path geometry is just excellent and the program is truly a credit to it's author.
Tweakie.
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Very nice there Tweakie ! I will try to follow the progress of this fine SW, hope you will as well. The forum in your previous link is in a foreign tounge, did you see an English translation anywhere ? I don't really understand the DXF import, is it to do vector type files ?
Beautiful oak ! I did one also in quarter-sawn red oak with clear poly, came out nice.
Thanks again,
Russ
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Hi Russ,
Sorry, I use the Google Chrome browser which incorporates Google Translate and although it makes a pretty poor job with Hungarian I just get by (well almost). Incidentally, there is a lot of useful stuff on their main website http://hobbycncart.com/ and I am doing my best to populate the English speaking section.
There is not yet any help file for F-Engrave but this is a US product and most, if not all of the functions are described in the video's on this page http://home.comcast.net/~sskroch/Fengrave/fengrave.html
The .dxf import function will enable routing of designs but it does not clear all the areas of the relief down to base level so a little hand finishing may be necessary to make a perfect job. It does, however, work very well and for a free software, I am not complaining. ;)
Tweakie.
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I agree ... can't beat the price !
This will give some other SW a "run for their money".
Thank you very much Tweakie, will play with it over the weekend.
Hope to post an example. I wish I had your photographic skills ! Will have to work on that a bit.
Anxious to see more from you as well.
Have a great weekend,
Russ
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Well, I finally got around to VCarving this boat name into a piece of Teak.
Because the overall length is greater than my machine table it had to be completed in 3 stages but this is not as difficult to do as I had first thought, having previously practised on a piece of MDF.
Now the hard work begins - It has to be profile cut to a curved shape and the edges rebated, varnished and the lettering gold finished.
Tweakie.
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Hi Tweakie,
That is one pretty chunk of Teak !
Did your shifts conveniently fall between the milled features ?
Or did you have to be extremely precise when doing the shifts ?
If precise, what method did you use ?
Be sure to show us the finished product !
Teak and Gold ....hmmmmm ... something tells me this is not for Bubba's Crawdad fishin' boat.
Russ
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Hi Russ,
Yes, fortunately for me, the shifts occurred between the wording and I was able to locate the same datum point at each shift.
Not sure if I can get a picture of the finished product, my part is just the VCarving - all the finishing work will now be done manually by an experienced woodworker. (I trust the final customer has plenty of cash because I can see this becoming one really expensive piece of bling). ;D
Tweakie.
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I've been playing around with F-engrave, as inexperienced as I am, I think it's great. I started cutting signs into blue foam right away. I use the blue foam scaps because it's easy to cut and it's free. Some of it is left over from some jobs and I always stop and pick up pieces from along the road. Also, I'm still waiting for my proper routing tools to show up in the mail.
We need to start an F-engrave thread, maybe I will when i get some pictures. Where would be the best place to start that? I am having some problems with the bit cutting fine nd the plunge too deep for the out box. I need to write down the settings to see if I'm doing something different or I'm missing something. I've loaded some other true text fonts, some work and some don't..?? Oh well, I'll save it for the thread.
I love the free stuff that works, thanks Tweakie....again!