if I am surfacing a new spoil board with a 1/4 shaft 1" 3 wing bit and doing 39"x39" area, should it really take 6 hours to do? cut settings: 30 inch per min., plunge 9" min, depth per pass 0.05 for a total of 0.1 depth? any setting suggestions? this will be 3/4" mdf
You can go into machine settings and change your stepover, what that would be I have no clue as I have not surfaced mine with that bit. Be careful I have heard stories of folks hitting the center hold down screw in the stock X carve spoil board. You could always incrementally bump your speed up after it is running to cut time off.
No, 6hrs is excessive.
Realize that default stepover is 40% of width of bit entered. This is a typical value for rough carving where one usually go as deep per pass as the material/machine allow.
Skim-cut is shallow and increase stepover to say 80% will lead to shorter total tool path (imagine using 80% of your mowers width to do the lawn, compared to same lawn with 40% width usage)
Here is a sim I just set up to see how it came out, 38min total for two passes.
You may drop feed rate to say 40IPM and and go 1/32" in a single pass, you can override speed in Easel if you feel its too fast or too slow. Repeat program untill whole surface is cut.
You might want to note that you machinable area is not 39X39!
You will be crashing your machine if you try that.
I appreciate the replies, I am placing the spoilboard on top of the original one as I don/t want to damage. if I cannot do the entire board, how big can I go?
That depends on your set up. You cannot go beyond the physical limits of your travel in x and Y
I cut out a piece of 1/2" MDF 30" X 30" and also drilled the holes in it so I can access the threaded inserts in the waste board.