VCarve path issue?

Hello, I have a question regarding Vcarves. I use Fengrave and have been having the problem shown in the picture attached. When the vcarve gets to a narrow section , there are 2 paths it takes to carve out the letters but those two paths are very close together and leave a small line of uncarved wood. The straight bit cleanup nor the v cleanup hit these spots. Any ideas on how to solve this ? I spend about 30 minutes on every carve manually cleaning out these spots with hand tools. Thanks guys!!

Ah ok thanks Phil! I see in the vcarve settings the Vbit cleanup step. I have never changed this from the default of .05 I wasn’t real sure what it did . You think if I lower it to .003 it may help ?

Awesome. Thanks for all your help. I will try to adjust as you suggested on my next go around.

What size is your flat clean up bit? That looks like you need something in the 1/16" diameter range to clean out those lines.

My flat cleanup is .0626"

Sorry .0625"

Right, my point was just about the size causing f-engrave to ignore those tight spaces because of bit diameter. 1/32" maybe? It depends on how much time you want it to take to flat clear or if can do it quicker with a small chisel or screwdriver.

That is a good point too. Too small of a flat bit and it is quicker for me to do with a detail sander. Thanks all for your input. I have some good ideas now

Let us know how you make out! We all run into issues like that :slight_smile:

@PhilJohnson - Out of curiosity, what do you normally set your flat depth to, and what do you set your DPP to for your vbit?

Wow ok, i guess i go a bit aggressive :slight_smile: I almost always use .2 for flat depth, but also have been going .2 DPP on my V Bit, it actually works out pretty well, but I recently dropped it to .125 to see if I can get slightly better quality!

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Phil , I am still playing around with my carvings, getting a little better each time ;). I think I am going to try your method of the special tool setups to try and really clean some of the areas not gotten by the v or flat clean. The smallest straight bit I have or have been able to find is .0625. This bit does a decent job but still leaves some areas behind for a manual cleanup with hand tools. What size would you suggest I set my cleanup bit for a .0625?

Thanks as always Phil!

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You can also get time estimates by hovering pointer over the toolpath name in the list and it will show a bunch of info including estimated time based on the settings you entered for that particular operation.

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Phil I am still having issues as the blue left circle in the previous post. I had my vbit cleanup step to .004". I did notice that the sun-step length was .01" , would this be causing the issue ? Thanks !

Thanks Phil, I’m not sure what is going on with mine. I don’t see anything that sticks out in comparison with yours but I am a beginner. Here is the problem area ,had a lot of these unfortunately I sanded them down a good bit before taking the picture but the circles area originally came to a sharp point at the top .

Also here is the tool and the tool settings I used.

Ah ha! I do see that now that flat bottom you point it out. I have the whiteside 60 .25. Part#1540. Oddly enough I have the same issue with it.

Crap… I just looked at it. It does appear that tip may have a very very small flat to it. Here is a pic of a carve I did with the 1540 and similar to the bigger bit

Not sure i understand when asked about a flat depth. Here is my vcarve settings for that particular carve

Also when I hit save v clean file it says no cleanup paths were found for this carve we are talking about