I did my first V carve using Inkscape to create a png and then using F Engrave to create the gcode. It cut out well except it left a thin piece of material in between two passes of the v bit. I was able to chip out the excess but I definitely don’t want to have to do that again.
Here is my settings for F Engrave
It did not generate any clean up code so the one pass with the v bit should have been enough. My only guess is maybe my bit is smaller than .125 and did not clear everything for that reason. I need to get a set of calipers to verify the size.
Any settings I can change to fix this in the future or did I do something wrong?
i’d guess either your bit diameter or V-angle setting is not correct.
It did not generate any clean up code. I changed the cleanup bit diameter to .125 but left the v bit clean up step as default (.05). What should that be set at?
The v bit angle is correct and the diameter is close, if not correct. It’s definitely near .125 but I don’t know if it’s dead on. Have to get some calipers to check. Would the bit being a few thousandth small cause that big of a mess?
Maybe that is my problem. Here is the bit I used
Wrong style bit?
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When I get home I will try to run it through F Engrave with the V clean step over at .002 and see what it does. The good thing is the cut turned out pretty well after manually cleaning it out so this project wasn’t a waste. This will just help me improve for next time.
I’ll post pictures of the completed clock after I finish painting it tonight. Thanks for the help.
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That’s exactly what I was doing.
BTW if you couldn’t tell this is a clock for my cousin’s birthday and I gathered most of my information on how to make it from your thread about your clocks so thanks for that information too.
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Here is the finished piece
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Stained a pine board with dark walnut stain. Couple coats of shellac. Carved. Painted the white and the black after the carve.
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Next v carve went a lot better. I still need to mess with the settings to get better results (still had some cleaning to do with a flat blade) but I think I know what I did wrong.
How long would you expect something like this (11x11) to carve? The initial cut took 7 minutes, v clean was 40 minutes, and .0625 bit cleaning was 15 minutes. The v clean seemed to be very inefficient. On many occasions it would raise, move a hair on the X axis, lower just enough to touch the board, and then raise and move elsewhere. Those extra/useless movements probably added 10 minutes to the v clean.
Have you ever noticed it doing the “random poking” where it is pretty much raising and lowering for no reason?
It’s pecking at spots where it has already cleaned up and there’s no way it could’ve thought there was still material left or decided to use the v bit to clean out things when it would’ve been better to use the flat end mill (ie: in ALL it cleaned out half of one of the L’s with the vbit and did the other half with the end mill. The other L right next to it used the end mill for the whole letter). Unfortunately I had nothing to do besides watch it carve so I saw every little movement. I should’ve taken a video but oh well. It’s no big deal. I’ll just keep playing with the settings and try to optimize it.
Well from the clock I went 2 steps forward when I did the “All of me” sign and now I went 1 step back with my next sign. I couldn’t remember the v bit clean step over setting I used and I thought it was .01. Well I used that setting today and it didn’t quite clean up very well. It wasn’t terrible but I still had way too much manual cleaning.
Luckily the end mill cleaned up a majority of it but the spots where only the v bit cleaned are a little rough. This is after the cleanup. I think the paint (tomorrow) will hide any of the imperfections. That’s why my wife gets the first attempt at each sign so I know what I can do better on the ones I sell 
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Might be you bit. Can you take a close-up picture of it. Also wood quality, feedrate and RPM makes difference.
It was definitely the settings and not the bit. The next one I am going to lower to .004 or so.
What total depth do you use? That sniper one doesn’t look too deep but it may just be the picture.
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