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So I am trying to carve a chess piece out of my maple block and I am using a 1/8" compound spiral roughing bit and a 1/32" Tapered angle ball nose bit(details on exact bit below). My confusion is when I want to do detail carving with this bit, but my chess piece is .625" deep and when I run the simulation it visually looks like for some reason easel wants to clean up with edges the roughing bit has already removed, pretty much unnecessarily, which I’m unsure if there is a way to prevent that, but also I can’t conceive how the bit wouldn’t contact the sides of the wall when it goes down, as the bit tapers and there’s no way to explain to easel that my bit has a tip of 1/32, but it tapers up to a 1/4" to the shank width over 1.25" length of the bit vertically.
So my question I guess is as follows:
is this just flat out not doable?
Am I doing something wrong?
Am I misinterpreting the visual of the simulation?
Is easel not nuanced enough for me to perform this cut without being able to dismiss cleaning up the edges of the block I’m cutting the chess piece form?
Can I tell easel to not do detail passes on certain sections?
Amana Tool 46280-K CNC Spektra Extreme Tool Life Coated SC 2D and 3D Carving 6.2 Deg Tapered Angle Ball Nose x 1/32 D x 1/64 R x 1 CH x 1/4 SHK x 3 Inch Long x 3 Flute Router Bit
I have cut/carved a complete chess set and I do not suggest using a tapered bit. It will taper any straight vertical carve on the finishing carve, unless your design has none. One thing i did that might solve this for the final carve is you stop the carve manually when your machine gets to the bottom of the chess piece, just rotate the design so the bottom is the last carve. When doing the finishing carve the bit will do a full depth cut not the usual gradual cut. My chess set was featured in the 3-D video. If you have any questions, contact me anytime. I have made one pece 6" tall and the rest 3" tall. I did mine in layers.
Were your pieces laying on their side?
I’m cutting half my piece on its side, flipping it over and cutting the other half.
My only problem is the interior wall boundary contact I’m anticipating when I perform the finishing carve.
I think the pictures will answer your question. I used a 1/4" downcut straight bit for rough cut for speed and a 1/8 ball nose straight bit for finishing. Sometimes using a third pass with a smaller bit but you have to manually stop the carve when the depth exceeds it cut lenght.
I used 2 pieces 1X4x6 3/4" pine board. One piece is at total of 4 pieces, 2 per half of each chess piece.
You can also do more layers the lager you make the chess piece.
It’s an interesting concept to slice it up like that.
I’m approaching it from the route of cutting half and then flipping it and cutting the other half.
My only size concern is regarding playable pieces for a board I made. But this seems to be proving beyond my intellect level.
With the thickness that you show dont be surprised that you dont break a bit on the finishing carve.
I suggest making the carves starting at the top and carve left to right to the bottom by rotating your design so the top is at the bottom of the screen. As i said before you can cancel the carve when it gets to the bottom or make the round tab that your picture shows about 1/4" smaller than the base diameter of the piece. these changes may help you to prevent breakage of bit and of the chess piece from its support. The finishing cut will carve the bottom a full depth cut as i stated above. Watch your cut speed and overlap of cuts to create a smooth carve. If i remember right each chess piece was a total of 2 hours.
The piece shown is only 1.25" thick, I’m cutting .625" deep per side.
I’m not sure I understand why you believe I will break a bit on finishing?
The finishing bit will remove such little amount of material, I wouldn’t expect any possibility of straining a bit enough to cause a catastrophic failure such as a break.
I’m also only doing half the depth of what you see there, flipping that piece and carving the other half from the other side so I can carve the entire piece as one, then cut the stabilizer columns and hand finish. My 4 holes you see will ensure my alignment when I flip stays true.
I guess I will find out tomorrow maybe if I decide to give it a try.
Thanks for the advice.
