Hey everyone! I am an amateur woodworker and brand new X Carve owner - been less than a week as of 18 July. I am trying to make the attached Grateful Dead project and I can’t quite figure out how to efficiently do it.
In order to keep the detail in the skull I need to use at least 1/16 bit but ideally 1/32 to get the finest detail. The issue I’m facing as a brand new user is that I don’t know how to layer the cuts so I can do the clearing with a larger bit and and then the detail with the finer bit.
I reviewed a lot of the “New Guy” help articles but couldn’t seem to find anything that addressed this so I tossed up a new topic that’s probably a repeat.
I just don’t know. Any help will be greatly appreciated!
V/R
Mark
Copy of Grateful Dead.zip (661.0 KB)
Hello Mark and welcome to the forum,
Instead of using a 1/32" bit use a V bit when you have fine detail. In the upper right hand corner of Easel you will see your material size then your bit size and then you will see a plus + sign, when you click on that plus + sign you can add a detail bit.
The first page in Easel I have it running with just a 90 degree bit, the second page I set it up as a 2 stage carve using 1/4" bit for the roughing and 90 degree bit for the detail. I had a better copy of that image so I switched yours out.
If you want to use a 1/16" or 1/32" bit all you would do is click the plus + sign and add that as the detail bit.
Good Luck
Russell
Edit: also when carving something with fine corners its best not to go very deep becasue you will chip up the corners, .006" deep is good on a carve like this.
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Russell thanks so much for your help! Your file makes much more sense and got down from 50 hours!!! I am running the cut right now and at the completion of the first pass of the second carve (the roughing carve) the x carve went back to home and didn’t raise the Z axis and dragged the bit across the entire piece. Did I screw something up when I copied the file you updated?
Thanks again!
V/R
Mark
You’re welcome, glad it almost worked out. Did you reset your Z height for the detail pass? Make sure you use the probe between bit changes. Coping my file shouldn’t effect the Z height.
Russell
Thanks for the quick response. For some reason it isn’t giving me the option to use the Z probe between cuts so I manually set it each time. Previously I used the z probe.
The other thing I noticed is that one my second and final detail pass the V bit wasn’t actually touching the wood. Should I be doing the two detail passes first then the roughing? Or the roughing pass first then the two detail?
Thanks again for walking me through this.
V/R
Mark
