Can I cut this

X-Carve
1

I was on my way home from work and I found this on the side of the road.

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The bottom is broken but the top was fine except for some dings. I haven’t done any carving in wood as I spend most of my time carving aluminum and acrylic so I’m a bit out of my element. I dont know what kind of wood it is but it seems quite soft. I’m not even sure what bit to use for the roughing passes, I dont have anything larger than 1/8 . the dimensions are 24 tall 28 wide and almost 2 thick.

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Even if it cant be cut well on the x-carve I’m open to suggestions.

2

It’ll mill fine. If it’s a softer wood it might be a bit stringy, but you can clean up fuzzies like that with sandpaper. The knots will be harder than the surrounding wood, so just make sure you choose a feed rate and depth of cut that will go through them without problem, and the rest of it will be okay.

I usually cut white oak, which is pretty hard as woods go, at 2000mm/min at a depth of 2 or 3 mm per pass with a 1/4" bit. You can use that as an upper limit if you’re unsure of the material. You can go slower and shallower, and it should be perfectly safe.

What exactly are you planing on doing?

3

Thanks, I’m not sure yet. i was thinking of doing a resin inlay but i dont have anything particular in mind. i was going to make a sign out of it originally but now I think I’m going to try and make it back into a table but a taller one.

5

I ordered a few different bits so I can test on a different piece and see what works best. still not quite sure what the design will be but i know its going to be complicated.

6

With salvage wood like that, run a magnet or metal detector over to see if there’s any buried nails or staples. Last thing you want to do is trash a good bit by running into a leftover screw.

Beyond that, great find and nice cleanup! Was that all sander, or did you use a chemical stripper too?

7

thanks for the tip. I just sanded it because I didnt have anything to strip it with and the top did have some dings that I wanted to sand out anyway. It took probably an hour or so to sand it all.

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