Just want to say THANKS to All for your replies and suggestions, sorry I haven't updated my progress sooner, but didn't get back to this project till a couple of days ago.
One of the things I ended up doing was using the 1/8" cutting bit instead of the carving bit and setting the grid size to 1/8" which helped as well for placement.
Attached is the final mpc just in case you would like to take a look.
Thanks again,
Bill....