I’m new to X Carve and easel. I’m trying to pocket clear acrylic so that the pocket engraved area is smooth, even and does not show tool marks. Any suggestions will help!
From my experience, the machine rigidity, router feed rate, tool choice, and depth of cut all impact the resulting cut. I’d choose a bit that is designed for acrylic and play with speed rate and depth of cut. An X carve isn’t a milling machine and although it may cut metals and hard plastic, your results may vary.
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you’re going to have tool marks at the bottom of a pocket milled in acrylic.
A torch could alleviate them in some cases…
If you’re talking about tool “edge” marks (not surface finish) I use a fine grit flat bottom diamond burr bit for a finish cut. It has radius edges that won’t leave lines. I never exceed 0.001" cuts. You’ll have to run speed tests on your machine. You’re trying to get as fast as you can in feed and speed before heat melt. Once you tune that in it works well.
It’s not perfect but a 400 grit sandpaper fines it out in seconds. Amazon has some cheap bits that work reasonably well
Thank you all for your suggestions. I’ve experimented with several different bits and settings. A 90 degree engraving v bit using raster fill at 150 feed rate cutting depth of .02 does a good enough job for me. Thanks again for all your responses.