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View Full Version : can you do litho with 1/2inch stock?



scoobie_6
12-17-2012, 09:36 PM
Hi, i am wondering if you can use 1/2 inch corian stock to do lithos? i have done a few now with 1/4 inch and they turned out very nice to my surprise.and from all the help i got from everyone here on the forum.

ladjr
12-17-2012, 10:03 PM
I have nevr used 1/2, but I would diffenitly take not take cuts above .23. Please post the results. I would be interested to see how the light comes throught

cnsranch
12-18-2012, 02:51 PM
I do it all the time. Here's one being picked up this afternoon....

I've also attached the MPC so you can see what I've done to depth and height.

cnsranch
12-18-2012, 03:19 PM
I should point out something.......

For the first time in doing a bunch of lithos, the first pass of the carving bit went thru pretty fast, causing me to skip a couple of teeth on the gear (I was really lucky that I didn't break the teeth). The bit was plowing thru Corian at a full .37" deep pretty quickly as the pattern was basically flat at that first edge. Bad thing is that I ruined a piece of Corian - by skipping the teeth, the axis was offset so that the machine carved too far into the border.

The way I fixed that problem was to carve in Optimal mode (I always do the Lithos in Best). Optimal slowed down the carve, and resulted in less of a big bite on that first pass.

The other way to fix that problem would have been to give the project a Carve region to a depth of .25", and feather the Region, then add the pic in the CR. The feather would have resulted in lesser bites as well.

I'm basically carving the Corian about .37" deep, but once in the carve, you're only taking a small bite each pass.

Lesson learned for me - won't happen again.

Canemaker
12-18-2012, 06:54 PM
5787457875I only do litho's in 1/2 inch corian it shows greater details and depth.
I carved at a depth of .375 with bit optimization at best and feather at 1/8 inch.
I used 1/4 inch corian and it simply looks like a photograph without any depth.

scoobie_6
12-18-2012, 07:07 PM
those look great i can't wait to try it. i have done 3 lithos so far with 1/4 inch and only one really looks good. so i have alot of practice to do and just hope i can some day get as good as you guys

roughcut
12-20-2012, 03:19 PM
Canemaker what height did you use ?

ladjr
12-20-2012, 04:53 PM
5787457875I only do litho's in 1/2 inch corian it shows greater details and depth.
I carved at a depth of .375 with bit optimization at best and feather at 1/8 inch.
I used 1/4 inch corian and it simply looks like a photograph without any depth.

Is that 1/2 or 1/4 inch. Looks great

Canemaker
12-20-2012, 09:01 PM
I used 1/2 corian with a height of 999 and a depth of .375 for maximum depth of field

easybuilt
12-20-2012, 11:06 PM
That came out beautiful, I have never used 1/2". I think I will give it a try. Thanks for showing us.

DocWheeler
12-21-2012, 02:19 PM
Having only used 1/4" corian, what kind of bit-life do you get with 1/2" corian.
Seems to me that it would get hotter and maybe dull faster - is that the case?

And yes, those thicker lithos look great.

cnsranch
12-24-2012, 09:51 AM
Hi, Ken.....

When I first starting carving 1/2", MT said that it wasn't a good idea - but, aside from the problem I mentioned below, I haven't had any problems.

Re dulling of the bit, if you're carving 1/4" Corian, the dulling will be the same with 1/2", it's just that more of the bit's being used.....

Ken Dolph
12-27-2012, 08:31 AM
Two things will slow the dulling of bits in Corian. First is to sow the feed rate a bit. The second is NEVER use the same bit for wood. Not sure why this is true but we increased bit life 11 times when we did both.

NLAlston
05-21-2015, 11:58 PM
Man, you NEVER stop gaining good info, here :D.

Thought that I'd never step beyond 1/4" Corian. But methinks that I will, NOW.