Ok, need some help from the hive!!! I am working on a plaque for a friends late Uncle. I have come up with a nice design but I am not very please with the outcome of the test piece.
For the test piece I used the Monsieur La Doula fond with a 60* bit and carved it 0.191" deep into walnut. There was a lot of clean up that had to be done in the text to fix some of the flat edges.
What is the best depth to cut at using a 60 bit in easel?*
Thank you, Drew
Can you post a picture of your results and let us know what your cut settings are.
Sure 
60* V Bit from Inventables
0.191 Cut depth
50 in per min
.05 depth per cut
I had to clean it up a bit last night so I could show it to my friend. But there are still a couple spots that are rough. If you look on the border carve and in the loops on the “D” you will see the “fuzz” that is still attached. I had to use a 30* bit and some sandpaper to clean out the other areas to make them look good enough to present as a test piece.
Andrew, are the belts equally tight and the machine square? I see some choppiness that is indicative of a machine that is not tuned or you are running too fast for the wood/bit. Also, for hardwoods, on a stock machine, I would slow down to 40 imp.
let us know how you fix it!
In terms of depth, the deeper you go with a V-bit, the thicker the lines, curves, etc. Using Easel, look at the preview windows to get a glimpse of what depth changes will produce and decide based on what looks best to you.
Many have found that a sign carving take 2 complete ‘carves’ to clean it up a bit. Just run the 2nd carving at full depth to skip the ‘air carving’.
Can you go into detail on this?
All belts are tight. I will have to check the square again and respond back. Thanks
Traxter means to run the carve again before removing from the clamps. The second run can use full depth of carve as your doc.
Also what rpm are you running the spindle?
Is your v bit sharp?
Walnut typically carves very well.
Mark, how do you make it run the second time without cutting air? use 60* for rough and 60* for detail? I am running the router on “Dewalt 1”. I would say the bit is sharp as this is the first time I have used it but I have received new dull tools before.
Thanks
Under custom settings for your bit change the depth of cut to match what you want to achieve on your sign. That way Easel thinks it only needs to make one pass instead of stepping down .05 each pass like your settings are.
You don’t do it as a 2 stage carve.
You can do it as second work piece but with settings as Steve said.
After your initial carve select the second work piece hit carve and use last x,y, and z.
I know a lot of people say the Dewalt only needs to run on the 1 setting. However I do not totally agree when a V bit is used. That fine point needs some rpm to do it’s job. I bet you will see a difference if you run it on 2 or 3 and keep your current feed rate.
I carve cherry with a 60* bit at 60 ipm and 0.075" per pass (generic Makita setting 3). Seldom have much clean up required.
So I have played with it a few times and I did run a second carve using the same X,Y. One thing I found out is it appears not to make a difference how deep you set it the v bit will only go so far with this particular font. (I even tried to set it to cut through and it didn’t change. Here are my results I did notice a bit of a stutter when all three axis were moving, I will have to try and figure out what’s happening there.
The depth of a v-carve is determined by the angle of the bit and the width of the design. It will carve shallower for fine, thin details and deeper for wider areas. The shape of the V-bit naturally makes the carved path wider when it carves deeper. In Easel you can set a maximum depth, but details would be lost if the bit goes deeper that it should. Try increasing the speed of the router for v carves.
Ahh, Mark said that too. I forgot to try that. Thanks for the reminder
Terry Edwards
Hi Andrew, I’ve been doing a lot of work with a 60 Deg bit like 6mm or 1/4" with the very tip at 1mm wide it make it very rare that I have to do any clean up. The only draw back is the cuts are a bit wider generally with the sort of thing you are doing I cut mostly 2 mm deep I’m not sure how that would convert in inches but from the pictures you have provided it looks like you are going that deep. With the tip being 1 mm wide it gives you a very smooth finish I think mainly because easel thinks the bit is a 60 deg bit with the sharp point and it cut accordingly, I leave the default setting of 40% step over this way you will every time get much less clean up.
I hope this helps.
Whats the design intended to look like?
what type of font is it?
