I’m making 7x6” signs that go at the end of a cash register saying they are closed. What I want to is make the bases for the sign to be angled upwards so it’s easier to see. My first thought was to resaw it on a table saw, but 90 degree cuts are sketchy enough as is. Next thought be to use the xcarve to the desired angle. The only problem is I’m new to the whole cad thing, so I’m either looking for how to program the angled cut or different ideas on making sign pointed up.
If you have a jointer, you could tilt the fence. A table saw motor should tilt. Same for a bandsaw where you rip along the fence. You could rip the angle when dimensioning the lumber. You could make a jig to hold the wood at an angle. Tilt the table on a belt sander. There are lots of ways to do the same thing. Using the Xcarve is probably the one that would take the longest time. I opt for efficiency with my work and if some other machine is better suited, I use it.
You could draw the part in a 3d cad program. Draw the line perpendicular and then rotate it to the angle you want. Then extrude that line into a surface. Make your rectangle around it. Then split the rectangle with the tilted surface. Delete the waste. Combine the surface to what’s left of the rectangle. If that is too complex at this time. You can draw all your lines and put surfaces on them.
I’d personally use a table saw, tilt the top to the desired angle taking out the human error.
Clamping it to tidy the surface would be awkward, so I’d use a jointer planer like Martin suggests above.
A jointer/thicknesser is a very handy bit of kit to have.
I agree with Adam that angling the table saw blade is the way to go, I would also cut the angled side on the stock in one length. IE before docking it to finished size, much safer with big bits than small
Table saw, angle the blade, rip rip rip. Done in few seconds.
Do you have a Vbit? You could use that to profile the edge and create the angle.
My students make angled name plates out of triangular stove chunks of firewood. You could adapt their process. We split a log into more or less triangular prisms. We face mill the narrowest face so it will rest on a table or flat surface as the “base”, then we face mill one of the other faces before carving the artwork. We leave the third face “rough” to give that fancy “natural edge” look that is so popular in hoity-toity circles.
Basically we just clamp down the stove chunk so that the narrow face is “up” and more or less parallel to the waste board. We set up a pocket cut that is a rectangle, just a bit larger than the chunk and we face this off using a 1/2" bit. (biggest one our 611 spindles can handle).
Then we re-orient the stove chunk to face the second surface. We face it, again by setting up a pocket cut just a bit larger than the area of the face. Then we do a bit change and carve the artwork.
We drive a couple of deck screws into the end grain of the stove chunks and use these to clamp everything into place.
First couple of times we just cobbled up the clamping system and I had to remove the waste board to get enough z clearance to mill the base, but the kids like the project so I’m probably going to make up an auxiliary waste board with a clearance slot and some sort of rotatable clamping fixture.
We do it this way because we are trying to preserve the live edges, but it does take a lot of spindle time to face a rough log. I generally set the facing cuts before I leave for the day.
Of course a band saw, jointer, and table saw would be more efficient for knocking out the blanks and if you are not trying to save a rustic edge, that would be the way to go.