First Vcarve designed and toolpathed sign

Nothing too complex involved but learned a lot. This was a cabinet shop reject door for $5. Gonna put some stain and color the letters to finish it then list on my Amazon store.

1/16" upcut at 80 (maybe 85) ipm.

  • the middle section is inset by like 7/16" but I was zeroing on the edge so I had to use a cut offset
  • I originally didn’t have a G90 in my PP. a quick push of the Estop and a quick investigation and the problem was solved. I saved the Z home switch but I ordered more just in case.
  • I thought I had my depth and passes set to 2 but it definitely did three. Might be a discontinuity between the toolpath setting and the tool database.
  • I set my ipm to be like 85 and probably should have been slower. I wasn’t quite sure of what wood it is but it did pretty well.
  • depth calipered out to 11/64" but I thought I said 3/32. My steps/mm are calibrated and spot on but I may have messed up the toolpath in Vcarve.
  • time estimate at 1.3 scale factor was basically spot on
  • having to go all the way up 0.2 inches above 0 (which includes the 7/16" inset) was a big time waste. I need to tweak home/safe values and such.
  • UGS Platform is nice, the new interface is a big plus.
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Instead of a new thread, I figured I’d update this. This sign has undergone a couple of transformations and it’s taken way too long. I have a tendency to take a bit longer to finish projects at time (I just got most of my security cameras up after buying them last November).

First, I tried to stain it. Turns out the framing wood was different on the four sides so it took the stain way differently and even more different than the beadboard surface. That wasn’t going to work. Plus painting the way too deep letters didn’t actually show the detail because it was getting quite a bit of shadowing due to the depth.

So the next plan became let’s paint it and experiment with an epoxy inlay. After way too long, the board was painted with a white chalk finish paint and today we poured the epoxy. We’re using the EasyCast from Michaels with some drops of metallic acrylic paint for coloration. Took about 4 ozs of epoxy to fill it in (way too deep of a carve…this was the first carve that motivated me to actually change my Z axis and not wait anymore…just took a while to do that).

Here’s what it looks like after pouring:

The beadboard provides a seepage channel for the epoxy so we’re cleaning that up and trying to minimize. I’ll go through with an xacto tomorrow after it’s set up more and trim it down.

I’ll try to remember to post final photos.

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