First sign carving from my machine.

[Underdog]

Finished this 14-1/2" square carve last night as I was mowing the lawn, cleaning the gutters, trimming the edges, and blowing all the clippings away. It's nice that the machine works while I do!

I'm not entirely happy with it as there are several places where the lines are so thin on the cross grain that they just crumbled away. I should have made them even thicker than I did, and added a lot more feather and draft. (Q: What's the difference between feather and draft anyway?)

I'm happy with the resolution though. I optimized the bit to the best setting, and saved the project at "best" quality, as 8 hours for optimal just seemed like overkill. It was a 3 hour 18 minute carve even on the best setting. Most of the carving is pretty smooth except for the "cliffs", so I'll set the draft or feather up higher next time.

I had several problems before I got it to carve though. I tried cutting on the other side of this panel which has a dark stain and laquer finish on it. (The upside of working in a cabinet shop, is that I get lots of usable scrap.) I kept getting "clear board sensor" messages, but no matter what I did, it kept giving me that message. Finally it dawned on me that the board sensor couldn't read that dark wood. Taping a piece of newsprint to the surface confirmed my hypothesis, as the board sensor then went on to read the board width - not perfectly, but close enough. When it had problems finding the end of the board, I painted the ends white, but that didn't really work either. This is a raised panel out of a door that was being scrapped. I barely had enough length on this board by cutting off most of the cove of the panel, so the ends weren't full thickness, so the board senser failed to measure all the way to the ends. So I wound up cutting thoses ends off, and scabbing about 1-1/4" onto the ends to get the length needed to stay under the rollers. Then I turned the board over to the unfinished side and it worked like a champ.

Now, of course the board is cupping because it's sealed on the uncarved side, and I removed all that material on the unfinished side... I suppose I should put the scabs back on and sand the finish off the back side so it won't cup anymore...

61781

And my Fletcher Dust Collector works pretty well too! AT least there weren't PILES of sawdust covering the inside of the machine.

[lawrence]

very cool indeed. Congrats on your first sign.

If you post your MPC we can see if an of the things that made you unhappy could be solved. (feather creates a slope around the project by the way and draft adds that slope within your project around the carves... in this case both would have helped)

With the board sensor thing- try using white masking tape... it works well and is easy to apply.

For the cupping, I think you've figured it out-- depth of carve (how deep is your carve?) makes a big difference too.

Lawrence

[chief2007]

Lower the depth of the pattern some as well and Yes try add draft as you mentioned. The draft will help some with the thin lines.

Lawrence is correct use masking tape center both horizontally and vertically on on the dark colored wood.

[easybuilt]

Very nice carving for your first project. Both Lawrence and chief2007 have given you some great advise. You next project will be even better.

[Underdog]

Here's the MPC file for what I carved last night. It WAS an STL file. I can't quite figure out how that happened yet....

I'd already thickened the vector lines somewhat in ArtCAM, but obviously that wasn't enough in this case.

[Underdog]

The depth was .250", but I believe when I imported the STL from ArtCAM it imported in at .160" high.

[easybuilt]

Try this, I changes the depth and added more draft. I also added a little more border on the sides. It should carve a lot better but watch using soft wood with these narrow lines.

[Alan Malmstrom]

Draft thickens the walls but choosing Optimization best will thicken the surface lines. And you can see this on screen as your viewing the board. All the same if the elevated lines of a pattern are thin, then the only thing you can do is thicken them up before importing.

[mtylerfl]

... I imported the STL from ArtCAM ...

Alternatively, you can specify any percentage/Draft angle you wish, directly in ArtCAM before you export/save your model as an STL. This feature is located in the Relief Menu and is appropriately designated as "Add Draft". I believe this feature has been available since version 8 (you may know the current version is 2012). What version of ArtCAM do you own?

[Capt Bruce]

Underdog, Good to see you've been making progress since we talked at the Woodworking Show and your sign design looks good. You are fortunate as you mentioned to have access to those scrap panels and parts from the shop for this kind of experiment. When in doubt and if the ultimate sign is to be painted I revert to fine grain MDF to help get past the crumbling thin ridges but best to follow the advice offered on draft and feather. Keep it up and you'll be running with our best.

[phxdatadr]

Very Nice Sign
Can you explain to me what and why you use draft.I thoght it waslike printing in draft.. being a newbie i learn something new here each day.

[badbert]

Draft (IMHO) should be called "Taper". That is much more descriptive to what it does. Great first project. Your next will be even better!

[Underdog]

Alternatively, you can specify any percentage/Draft angle you wish, directly in ArtCAM before you export/save your model as an STL. This feature is located in the Relief Menu and is appropriately designated as "Add Draft".
I didn't know ArtCAM had that feature, but now that you point it out, I'll look for it. I haven't been able to play with it much... but now that I've got my CW, I imagine I'll play with it more.
For those of you not familiar with foundry work, draft is a term used for the taper needed on a pattern, typically made from wood, in order to be able to remove it from a sand mold. The cavity left is filled with molten metal and left to solidify as it cools. This explains why most castings have tapered sections.


What version of ArtCAM do you own?

I don't own it, unfortunately. It belongs to the company I work for. I just get to use it since I'm the only who has received training. It is the very latest version though. I just downloaded and installed build 350 the other day.

[Underdog]

Thanks for the compliments and help. As you might imagine, working in a cabinet shop that owns ArtCAM and a KOMO CNC router, I have experience with this stuff. But the CW is new and unfamiliar to me, and so is CW's software (although it's becoming less so every time I use it.)

[mtylerfl]

The Draft feature for CW Designer came about from a conversation I had with Chris Lovchik many years ago regarding chipout tendency of thin lettering. My second project I did with my first CarveWright machine was a Coca-Cola vintage sign for our gameroom and I experienced some minor chipout on the letters, here and there. I was "ok" with that because the sign was intended to look a bit old and worn anyway - but, I asked Chris about a way to add an angle of material to thin parts of lettering to allow the Carving Bit to more gently "glide" up and over the thin parts to reduce chipping (in other words, it would eliminate a straight vertical "cliff" on those thin areas).

Happily, he told me the official term (draft angle) and he said it might be something fairly simple to add. As I recall, it was within just a couple weeks or so and we had that feature. The Small Draft setting creates a 7-degree angle (purposely the same as the Carving Bit angle)...the Medium Draft yields a 25-degree angle...the Large Draft adds about a 45-degree angle to vertical edges.

Mainly the draft's purpose is to reduce chipping and "digging" along the edges of vertical-walled items, but I have found it to be useful as a design feature, as well. And, as you said, is very useful for creating molds that will easily release a casting.

Additional tips for neater raised (raster) lettering carves (besides adding draft)...

• don't make the raised lettering too high, too small or too thin
• reduce the Height value of the lettering inside of a Carve Region (example: Carve Region 0.25" deep with raster (raised) lettering will have the letters carve 0.25" deep...by reducing the Height value to less than the default of 100, you will lower the height of the letters and often get a nicer carve as a result. It's not unusual to set the Height to a value of 50 or even less, to get a clean carve...experiment with the settings and observe the on-screen preview.

[mtylerfl]

I don't own it, unfortunately. It belongs to the company I work for. I just get to use it since I'm the only who has received training. It is the very latest version though. I just downloaded and installed build 350 the other day.

I installed the Service Pack Build 350, too. So, we are both using the most current 2012 version. (at least on the 64-bit version...the SP1 Build 350 did not update the 32-bit version which I also have installed. I take it as a sign that they are moving away from 32-bit)