Clean carvings?

[pshriver]

I am just starting to experiment with carving with my shopbot. I am using PartWorks to carve with and it seems that it does fine with lettering for the most part as long as it is not very detailed. I have been importing them in as jpg and setting vectors to the jpg. Is this cluttering up the toolpath so that the cuts don't seem clean? Does the wood make a difference? Are there other tricks to either designing the carving or preparing the wood that would help with a cleaner carving? How about bit speed? or path speed?

Thanks for any suggestions in advance.

Phil

[zeykr]

The short answer is that everything you mention and more has an effect on your carving.



Is this cluttering up the toolpath so that the cuts don't seem clean?

Do a node edit on the vectors you create, are they smooth with just a few points were needed or are there many points with random bump outs etc. It's very common for a jpg converted to vectors to be quite rough and need some to a lot of editing.


Does the wood make a difference? Certainly, too soft chips out easily and each wood has its differences. You'll need to learn to adjust speeds and feeds based on what material you're carving and bit your using.

Are there other tricks to either designing the carving or preparing the wood that would help with a cleaner carving?
On some soft woods you can finish first or saturate with shellac to make it a little easier to carve.

How about bit speed? or path speed?
Speeds and feeds definitely need to be adjusted for each material. Bit choice also makes an incredible amount of difference.

You asked some pretty open ended questions that are difficult to answer in generalities. Might be easier if you posted your specific project, materials, settings and problems and likely someone here can help. Also browse the forums, there is a lot of info buried in here. Try searching for the type of wood you want to use, speed or feed info etc and you'll find a wealth of info on here.

When you have a problem, post it on here as it's easier to answer a specific question.

[myxpykalix]

First off, newbies are only allowed to ask one question at a time:rolleyes: (just kidding)!

First you should post a picture of your results because that tells us more then a description.

I am just starting to experiment with carving with my shopbot. I am using PartWorks to carve with and it seems that it does fine with lettering for the most part as long as it is not very detailed.

Are you talking about V carved letters or "raised letters"? Possibly you don't see an issue with letters is because they are skinny or vcarved.

I have been importing them in as jpg and setting vectors to the jpg. Is this cluttering up the toolpath so that the cuts don't seem clean?

If you are converting text from a jpg to carve then you are doing it incorrectly. You need to type the text in thru the text editing function in your program. By importing text and converting it, because it comes probably from a printed document first you are also getting the "DPI" (dots per inch) from the paper which messes it up. Some text can be done that way but most have problems.

Does the wood make a difference?

Yes, but that doesn't really discount a particular species. That just means you need to cut it at different feeds and speeds. Soome woods are better then others for different applications.


Are there other tricks to either designing the carving or preparing the wood that would help with a cleaner carving? How about bit speed? or path speed?

One quick tip is in your toolpath setup make sure your "stepover" value is around 9% for doing carvings. That will increase the cut time but decrease any sanding you may have to do and make it look nicer. Again a picture will tell us more about what you may be doing wrong.

"young padawan....you have much to learn...":D

while i was pondering all those questions and forming answers Ken beat me to it!!!!

[gc3]

I am just starting to experiment with carving with my shopbot. I am using PartWorks to carve with and it seems that it does fine with lettering for the most part as long as it is not very detailed. I have been importing them in as jpg and setting vectors to the jpg. Is this cluttering up the toolpath so that the cuts don't seem clean? Does the wood make a difference? Are there other tricks to either designing the carving or preparing the wood that would help with a cleaner carving? How about bit speed? or path speed?

Thanks for any suggestions in advance.

Phil

aahhh grasshopper.....search engine on many forums you best friend :eek:

BTDT...time is your best teacher

...Mr Zey had to hold my hand for a while so listen to what he has to say, but at some point you will have to make some firewood to learn what works best for you and your machine.

[pshriver]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Especially Mr. Zey! I will try to post a pic of what I'm talking about but it was very helpful the answers I got. I suppose it is time to make some firewood. I think I will call it my shopbot carving party and have a nice bonfire in the firepit. I will test some more carvings and get the pics of issues. Thanks for everyone since this was my first post as well. Guess I'm just excited to know it all RIGHT NOW.

Thanks,
Phil

[COBOB]

I am pretty new to the CNC carving, but have been carving by hand for lots of years. I can tell you for sure, different woods in general hold different levels of detail. I think you will find Maple (Hard Maple, not the softer varieties) or Walnut are going to give you the best results. Having said that, I just got finished with a sign done in Alder. Alder is terrible for holding fine detail. The sign is textured like it had been done by hand. The problem came with the Turtle the lady wanted on the sign. I am doing it over again tonight. I will use Alder again but am going to pocket an area for the turtle and do the turtle from Maple. I hope the contrast will look good.

[Billions]

This seemed like a great thread to ask this question: What would be a good bit for detail carving? I did some carves over the weekend and I'm trying to reach the detail levels I used to get with my older machines (Carverwright) using the sharp 1/16" tapered bit.

I already know this ShopBot I that bought whoops ass seven days 'til Sunday over my older Carvewrights - no need to go into all that! I'm just wondering what bit would be the best solution to get more detail than the Onsrud ballnose 1/8" that came in my ShopBot's starter kit.

What would be a good tapered bit for the ShopBot? And where would you recommend buying one? (...or three, as I also don't know the best feed speed, and I'll probably destroy a few!)

[COBOB]

I personally love the 1/16 and 1/8 ball nose bits from precisebits.com. I use the ZRN coated ones and am getting terrific mileage out of them. I must have carved about a mile of Hickory before the first one wore out.

[zeykr]

I like Gary's 1/16 and 1/8 tapered ballnose bits:

http://www.beckwithdecor.com/index_files/Cutters.htm

[gc3]

http://www.discount-tools.com/awa-cb-.5B.cfm

[Billions]

Guys... Thanks for the information! I truly love these forums.

I delved in and looked at all the sites you guys suggested. I called a few, but the east coast ones were obviously already closed.

I ended up calling Beckwith Decor (www.beckwithdecor.com), in Kansas. I spoke with Gary there, who is incredibly knowledgable and very helpful.

I ordered a few of the zrn bits/mills and I'm awaiting their delivery.

Thanks again!

Bill

[jerry_stanek]

do you have any carvewright bits left they work great for carveing

[CNYDWW]

Just a little trick i learned about importing .jpg or other image files. If you have a paint program (I use paint.net). Open the black and white image in the paint program and increase the size. Zoom in on the edges then increase the contrast. If the image is really bad, use a gaussian or other blurring technique to smooth the jagged edges before playing with the contrast. Once you're done save it as a PNG. PNG's have a lot less noise and pull vectors a cleaner. Even if the vectors will be oversized considerably. Fit the vectors then scale it afterwards. Once that's done, use the node edit as mentioned before. You'll notice quite a bit of difference. I came up with this while using bobcad for carvings. No matter how you change bobcad's settings it always fits vectors that end up being rough.

Regards
Randy

[Billions]

do you have any carvewright bits left they work great for carveing


Hey Jerry. Yeah, I do, but they're out in NYC while I'm in California right now, so I can't really get at them any faster than ordering new ones.

Eventually I will likely use some of the bits I purchased to use with my RockChuck, a third-party bit chuck I was using.