Tried the 3D carving out last night. I read through most of the topics on this board before I tried the 3D carving. I use another software usually for this feature but it was fun to try another one.
Test 1: Material thickness .75"
Depth of Cut .75"
When I imported the design I noticed that the program added tabs automatically to the designs when you want to rough the full depth. I went with a 1/4" downcut bit on the 1st roughing try and remembered the roughing pass was designed for ball nose bits. The tabs ended of breaking out the piece at the end due to the bit I used.
Test 2: Material Thickness .75"
Depth of Cut .7"
I went with Luke Wilson’s idea of only using a 1/4" ball nose for roughing and detailing. I only cut .7" down this time make sure the piece didn’t break out. After the detail pass I ran 1 more roughing pass real fast at full depth to see of the piece would break out this time. I popped the piece out after that and used a scroll saw to clean it up.
Thoughts:
- Some people already suggested what I was thinking so far. A profile pass to cut the carved piece out at the end would be a good idea.
- Being able to switch direction of cut 90 degrees based on your preference of cut.
- When positioning the model, a center in middle of material option would be nice. The positioning coordinates are nice but not an easy option when changing the size of the model while trying to fit it in the material.
- An option to scale the model to fit in your material you entered
- I wanted to try a smaller stepover on a 1/8" ball nose bit but the generating tool path took way too long so i went with a 1/4" bit.
- I’ll have more this weekend once I play with it more.