Gettin Jiggy with it.......

[Marzluf]

So..... today I attempted to carve what would be the knee of a cabriolet leg.

I understood going into it that it would not be able to wrap the design around the sides and keep the carving perpendicular to the surface. Anyway... I made a simple design merged onto two surfaces (each one being domed to the max - 1" deep and 999 height) I then made a quick sled out of some 1/2" ply that had side rails 2" tall for the rollers to contact. Next, I made some 45 Deg shims to hold the leg on its corner so that the carving would be on the correct 45 deg face of the leg.

Well...... everything seemed like it was going to work and I had planed to jog to position, locate surface etc.. but couldn't get past the measuring portion. I thought maybe the fact that I had side rails confused the sensor when it looked for the ends so I ran some masking tape across the front and back. Still no dice...

I'm sure I can trick into carving what I want, but getting there seems liek it's going to be a bigger job than I had planed on.

Anyone else attempt anything like this ?? Any sugguestions as to why the masking tape wouldn't fool the machine into "seeing" an edge for the length measurement ??

[BobHill]

Since you are talking about a specific work design, can you attach the MPC file so we can take a look at it?

Bob

[Marzluf]

I just used a board size that was the same size as my sled, and used a height that was slightly taller than the top of my acutal piece would be.

Does that make sence ?

Meaning...... if I posted the MPC file, it wouldn't really pertain to the actual carving that I was atempting.

[Marzluf]

For reference, here's a couple pics of my setup.

The sled, with the leg held in place with double stick tape.

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL96/791874/9102838/225208942.jpg

And a test carving of the design that would have gone on the knee of the leg. (just a simple design for a test run. This wasn't meant to be a final piece.)

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL96/791874/9102838/225208949.jpg

[BobHill]

Wow, I'm bad tonight. My answer to you has absolutely nothing to do with YOUR question. Somehow I completely had another question in mind when I answered you. It had a Memory problem, which isn't your case. Sorry about that.

When the bit goes down to sense the surface of the board is it going only to the top of your work wood, or to the top of where the rollers would be hitting your sled side (if they are different)?

Bob

[Marzluf]

Doesn't even get that far..... It measures the width, then tries to measure the length and obviously gives me a sensor error. I had masking tape on the jig across the top from side to side at each end to try and trick it into measuring length but that didn't work.

If it had worked, I was going to give it the leg surface to "find" and do a jog to position for the carving.

[BobHill]

You snuck the photos in while I was composing my last message. And from the looks, I'm thinking that due to the shape of your piece and it's heigtht in relation to where the bit had to probe the surface might well be the problem. On my cutting sled, I've always had no sled sides (not true of my 3D probe sled). The cutting wood would have sides and the bit would be the same height as the rollers would rest. Perhaps someone else has had an example of what you are attempting. Perhaps the carving should be put onto the leg prior to it's shaping otherwise. Great idea and design.

Bob

[Dan-Woodman]

I think I'd carve the design first and then cut the leg to shape.

[Digitalwoodshop]

If I were doing it, I would try a longer box just like you made but put a 8 inch board at each end as if the sled was a solid 2 inch high block of wood to the computer. A flush board mounted at the ends, flat, even with the side rails. Good Luck,

The tape, if it was on top at the ends and flush might have been too opaque.

AL