Wow Sketch 42 this is beyond what i expected! I am so grateful for your help and this really has set me in a good direction! I finally finished setting up my machine today and hope to get carving very soon! Will have to post my results when Its all carved out! Once again I am beyond grateful for all your help. This really is a great community that I am prod to be apart of and will hopefully be able to provide some knowledge in the near future!
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Awesome! Glad helped.
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@sketch42 Hey there. So I have made a new deign in illustrator for my box. When I exports as an SVG and import into Easel there are no black lines to show the file. Only when i select all I can see the outline. Also the pockets that i have created arenāt adjustable like I intended. Basically I want the main middle section to be milled out an inch and then the small section on the top and bottom to me milled out .2 of an inch so the lid for the box will be recessed. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Yep, easy fix. In Easel you can choose to select the part you want milled out and then select āfillā and then set the depth.
Do this for each object you want milled.
Another way in the future is to make these lines fills in Illustrator and then assign them each different grey scale values. that will make selecting them in Easel a little easier.
Edit: as they are, when you import them into Easel they are at 0 depthā¦ they are there, just set to white (0 depth) and so they are hard to see unless you select them.
@sketch42 I tried doing that. What happened was the entire inner section went down and the additions that I made out of lines in illustrator are left as just lines in sketch up. They are not connect like I want them to be to make separate pockets if that makes sense.
Ah, I seeā¦ If you are working with these in Illustrator then it should be relatively easy to make them closed shapes.
Would you mind attaching the SVG to a reply on here, and Iāll take a look at it.
Thanks, Iāll take a look.
Thanks appreciate it!
Ok, sorry for taking so longā¦ it was a pretty quick fix in the end.
I saw that the a lot of the vectors created in the SVG that you posted were open ended ones and not closed shapes. In Illustrator, or Inkscape, you can check for this in may ways, but a quick way is to just try and give all of the objects in the document a fill and no stroke.
Using wat was there I was able to create closed shapes with fills and not strokes. I think I have what you are looking forā¦ In Easel it looks like this when you set the outer shape to cut outside the line:
See the attached SVG as the corrected one:
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No problem! Thanks for your time once again. I am still having troubles on the illustrator file. Would you mind quickly walking me through how to make them closed shapes?
Yep, Iām putting together a video for another thread, and Iāll just add another to the end and post it here.
Hey @sketch42, What kind of bit would you recommend using to quickly hollow out the box while still keeping a nice edge? Currently I am using the double flute bit that came with my machine but it takes for ever to carve out the box at the preset feed and depth per pass. I increased it so its taking more material out but traveling slower and the edges arenāt very smooth any more.
This is what the test carve looked like. The connecting parts at the top and bottom are also not smooth with each other and dot not make an even opening.
Welcome to the wonderful world of feeds and speeds.
Which bit were you using? 1/8, 1/16? Flat or ball nose? What did you have the RPM set to?
The bit diameter was .115 inch and it was the flat nose duel flute bit and the RPM was set to automatic. As far as bit section goes I want something to take a lot of the wood out fast. Would even consider doing a two stage cut potential to clean it up. The bit will also have to be long enough to plunge through 1.3 inches of material @sketch42
Ok, so you had it on automatic, but what speed? In Easel go to the Machine menu for that project and see what the RPM is set to.
Is this the straight flute or spiral up-cut?
A two stage cut would help with what you are wanting. Maybe one to do a rough cutout of the pockets and another to clean up at a little slower feed.
The RPM was 14000, it was a straight flute bit. Could i use a big bit to do the majority of the hollowing and then a smaller bit to clean up the edges and have a tighter corner radius?