I just got my round bits, hoping to use them soon and do a few relief carves. But I was wondering what everyone is doing about cleanup afterwards? I’m not a fan of sanding, and the idea of sanding a 3D carve isn’t terribly appealing. That said, has anyone used sandblasting to clean up their carves? I’ll report back on my findings after I do a few tests.
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I was only sanding about a 6’x6’ project and found that hand sanding was the easiest method. I got a really good surface finish with a little effort.
With a stepover small enough to prevent excessive scallops, I’ve gotten away with no sanding at all with my 3d carves. Granted I’m trading off machine time for manual sanding, but id rather run the machine all day long , whatever it takes so that I don’t have to post process at all…
Out of curiousity, how small were you using, and with what size bit?
I use mostly 0.5mm radius tapered ball bits for 3d releifs and about a 20% of tip diameter as the stepover. So for the 0.5mm radius TBN that would be 0.2mm stepover.
For smaller or larger projects i use appropriately sized bits and keep the 20% stepover as my baseline. Sometimes going as low as 15% for much larger projects where it would be easier to see the a scallops.
