DC comics aztec style calender

Hey everyone I’m not sure if I’m posting in the correct place but I just wanted to share my own design on the dc comics calender created by sandy eggo. (Thanks for the inspiration sandy)

It took me about 3 days to design although I was using a software iv never used before so i probably spent more time on google than the actual software haha.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated because I have never done anything like this before.

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I got it machined in about an hour and its 350mm diameter but the symbols and small details need making bigger but overall not bad for a first attempt.

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Fantastic job! Well done!

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Terrific!! Great use of the characters … all feels very cohesive. My son hopes you eventually share the file but understandable if not given the time and effort put into it.

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Thanks for the kind words, starwars and the avengers next

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Looks awesome! the ones that are currently available take along time to carve especially the Marvel one.

I tried the marvel one and it took quite a lot longer than this one, it was the marvel one I first found which started my obsession with making my own lol

I have just carved another one but this time I made the symbols around the inner circle much bigger but the problem I’m having is some of the small details are breaking off. I tried a brand new v bit and slowing my feeds down with no luck, any ideas on what I can try?

How deep are you cutting? This may want a narrower v bit … like a 60 or 45 versus a 90.

I’m cutting max 10mm but the areas its breaking off are 5-7mm deep. I’m using a 60 degree bit so i may try a 45 degree bit

Is 7 mm about a quarter of an inch? That feels deep for fine detail. Will be curious as others weigh in.

Is the material MDF?

Yes its mdf, I did think I may be going to deep, i think there is 25mm in one inch but iv never been able to wrap my head around imperial lol. Maybe using a cheap bit and going to deep has caused the problem. It will be good to find out the optimum depth from others on here.

Has anyone tried these?

I am interested to hear what others say, too.

For me, I go .08 inches for most of what I carve that has some detail (e.g. a fish image on a cribbage board). Not sure where I got that from or if it’s been the best approach.

What’s your speeds and feeds for mdf?

1" is 25.4mm so if you are going 8mm deep you are around .315" deep. I would say that is pretty deep but not sure what you are wanting.

Before I upgraded my z axis … router always on 1 and feed rate of around 60. Depth of cut in the .08 or so range. Others I am sure push harder.

Another tip … Cover 90 percent of your design with boxes set to zero depth and test carve just the problematic parts til you have it going right.

V-Carves will only go as deep as they need to, so no detail would be lost. An advantage to cutting deeper is that you let the wider part of the bit clear larger areas where a shallow max depth would only use the smaller tip and require more stepovers.

Beyond that, I think it comes down to your desired look.