As I learn more about the x-carve, I use my tweaking experiments as gifts for my friends. In this case, I made a sign for my neighbor to put in his gazebo.
This was cut out of some 3/8" cherry, 26.5" x 6.5".
Rough-cut was a 1/4" 1-flute endmill, feedrate of 60ipm, stepover of .0625", depth of .0625", DeWalt on 1. Took 1 hour, 10 min. Ran great, no chatter or anything
Finish was with 1/4" 2-flute ballnose, feedrate of 60ipm, stepover of .0312", DeWalt on 2. Took about 2 hours.
Really pleased with the result. Could see doubling the stepover in the future of the finish cut.
Modeled it in Autodesk Maya (about half an hour of work), toolpath made in MeshCAM, sent to the X-Carve via Chilipeppr.
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Wow! If this is an experiment, I can’t wait to see the real deal! 
Love the font. Hobbit-ish?
Background texture? So awesome it almost makes me seasick…
Let me know when any houses on your block come up for sale…
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really nice work.
how did you create the background?
Background texture: I model in Maya, and it has “volume noise” texture node (among many other types) you can apply to the material assigned to a mesh: I wrote a Python script that converts 2d or 3d textures into displaced mesh: So in this case I tessellated a poly plane the size of the stock, applied the volume noise shader, tweaked parameters on it until I liked the look, then ran my script converting it to real displacement. I jammed it in with the frame & text mesh, sent that as an stl to MeshCAM and popped out the toolpaths.
Thanks for the compliments!
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Eric, fantastic work.
As for your explanation, I understood all the words, but got lost only a few words into the paragraph…
(That’s a reflection on my knowledge, not on your explanation or fine work)
Ha, I feel you 
Basically I made a tool in my 3d software that converts images to displaced\bumpy mesh: I made an image based on one of their procedural noise algorithms, slapped that on something flat, then turned it into something bumpy.
I actually understood what you said, but I haven’t touched Maya in a few years. Nice work still. 
@AK_Eric I think this is AWESOME. It would be even more awesome to get an STL of that background (though I totally understand if you do not want to freely share all of your hard work). I think this background is a great example of how to make the scalloping inherent in 3d carving work FOR you, rather than against you. Nice work.
Sure, find attached. It’s about 380k tri’s, so I had to zip it up.
I only ask if you use it for some thing cool, you give me credit
noise_bg.stl.zip (7.7 MB)
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Nice! Arguably at that size it would need a higher res mesh for the displacement so you get less faceting, but something is better than nothing
Thanks for the inspiration! I liked the rippled background idea so I figured out how to do it by generating a random cloud pattern in Gimp and then using image2surface to make it a height map in Fusion 360. The lettering was done in Inkscape.
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Nice! Looks slick.
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