Hi all,
I’m trying to cut this two-sided shape. It requires cutting depth on one side, then flipping it and cutting the exact depth on the other opposing side. My question is open as to how you might tackle this. Right now, it seems to be a question on how to align the object once the material is flipped on the X-Carve’s wasteboard.
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.
Thx!
Assuming the recesses are 1/8", I’d cut a hole the exact size of the “bottom” part of your piece in a 1/8" board and secure it in place with a screw through the hole in the upper piece. Then cut the recess on the top side. If you can align it such that the screw goes into the threaded inserts in the wasteboard, you’ll be able to use that little jig a million times without trashing the wasteboard.
Alternatively, you could just cut a hole the size and depth of the bottom part in the 3/4" material and do the same thing. That would make it fairly tall though, I’m not sure how much Z axis clearance you have.
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I would give this a try and make sure to use the same home position on each cut stage remember to write down your saftey height setting and when the first cut finishes simply flip your work piece lower your bit exactly the saftey height and then carve again
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I would be tempted to run a board on edge over a table saw a couple times to get the opposing offset cuts, then whack to width with chop saw or other.
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also on a project like this i would not use tabs on the outer cut because when you cut the other side it may cut the tabs of i think the better bet would be to leave a thin strip around the middle of the project do this by setting the depth of cut just shy of 1/2 the thickness of the wood on both sides you will have to get in there with a small dremel bit and cut the piece out but it will hold it more secure than the tabs in easel
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Here’s what I was talking about. This is assuming you’re milling down on section 2, and flip over to mill down on section 1.
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lol I want to make on of these now just to play around
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Ventric has a pretty good tutorial on one way to do this. It is worth watching even if you don’t use their software.
To summarize.
You add some alignment holes to be drilled on the top half of your cut.
Centered on the cut area to be “flipped” - this can be tricky depending on how your software works.
You clamp the work down over a disposable sacrifice sheet (this needs to be secured separately to your worktop.)
You carve the top part and the alignment holes, sized to fit a pin or dowel of some kind. The holes go all the way through the work piece and partially into the sacrifice sheet.
You then remove the work, flip it, and use the pins or dowels to align the work back on the sacrifice sheet.
Then cut the back side.
(The video shows this better)
The trick is getting the “flip side” aligned properly in your cut program. Alignment tools should help.
This does have the advantage of being independent of the material size.
But it adds a few extra steps.
The first time I did this I forgot to clamp down the sacrifice sheet separately. So when I took of the work to flip, I accidently too off everything! Opps.
Later on I stopped doing it because at the time I was having issues getting the dowel holes to cut at the right size on my old CNC. (I have yet to try this approach on my XC)
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@SpinNCahrbide I made a jig to run the piece over the table saw as a quick fix and it worked fantastic. For my crude sketch, it worked for the ‘flat’ cut. Ultimately, I would like to add a shape to the cut which makes pursuing the other X-Carve options the way to go for final application. This weekend I’m going to attempt the ‘flip’. Thanks to everyone for the comments - they were very helpful and all look like they would work!
Haha. Mr. table saw ain’t a bright boy, but he’s quick to do what you tell him.
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