Challenge for you super slicers - STL Importer - Baseball

[Durtdawber]

Attached is an STL of a baseball. I just added the STL importer to my software about a month ago but I am having a he** of a time slicing this baseball up to work properly.

I'm trying to:

- slice it into as few slices as possible
- maintain the size /dimensions (same size as a real baseball)
- I'm using 1.187
- using wood that is .75 thick.

I've been able to slice it up into 8 pieces with some blue area and 10 pieces with very little blue area.

I just figure that there is a better way and I'm not getting it.

Post any results on the forum for everyone to have, if you don't mind.

Thanks,

Donnie

[oscarl48]

Hopefully I am understanding what is being asked.

The ball is 2.85 inches. Since you want to use .75 thick stock you will need 4 slices.

.75 x 4 = 3 inches which is just a little bit over 2.85.

You can slice at .75 but the last slice will be really thin so I set my slices to .71 for a more even thickness. 2.85/4=.7125.

Don't forget to rotate the back slices 180 degrees so they can be carved.

In the pattern set to pierced and set some manual tabs.

[bergerud]

I know this is not the challenge, but, this is a job for the rotary jig. I have made one before.

I do not think you can get decent results for the threads with the slicing method.

[Durtdawber]

Oscar,

What you did is exactly what I did to start with. I carved the file with the 4 slices, the middle two slices cannot show any definition for the laces due the the angle of the carving bit and the angle of the cut. The laces just come out as a small bump.

What I've been trying to do now and get 6 slices for the outer surface (top, bottom, front, back, left, right) and then slice up the inner area. It gets dicey at that point because of bit angle and flat-horizontal surfaces.

Thanks,

Donnie

[Durtdawber]

Bergerud,

You are probably right. unfortunately, I do not have the rotary jig.

Could you pm me your design in case I get a jig in the future?

Donnie

[bergerud]

Bergerud,

You are probably right. unfortunately, I do not have the rotary jig.

Could you pm me your design in case I get a jig in the future?

Donnie

There is no design. I just imported your stl as a rotary for the screen capture. (I did not even save the mpc.)

[bergerud]

I wonder how hard it would be to cut six pieces like faces of a cube with miters which would glue up to make the ball. The ball would have a hollow cube inside.

(See the post: http://forum.carvewright.com/showthread.php?21126-Tetrahedron-Miters&p=182192#post182192 where I did a similar thing based on a tetrahedron.)

Edit: Here is a quick example. (It is poor as the stitches end up on the corners; it is just the idea.) It would take some effort to make this work.

[Durtdawber]

Thanks. I've never done a rotary import so I've never seen the outcome. Looks cool. Do you know if the rotary functions and jig will work with 1.187?

Donnie

[bergerud]

Thanks. I've never done a rotary import so I've never seen the outcome. Looks cool. Do you know if the rotary functions and jig will work with 1.187?

Donnie


No. Designer pro is required.

[DickB]

I'm no expert on slicing, but at the conference last year Joe talked about slicing. To get a good result, I think that you would need to use 6 slices: a top and bottom, front and back, left and right, possibly leavong a hollow cube center. Make sense?

Edit: Sorry, I see you have tried that. But I suspect it is the way to go with this object.

[bergerud]

How about something like this? I have no idea how it would turn out. It would take some tweaking for sure. I think the straight cutting bit is required to get the vertical side gluing surfaces.

(Also would need tabs on the pierced pieces.)

[oscarl48]

lol. you are making me use math.

If I align a cube that barely touches the inside the ball sphere surface I get about 1.65 x 1.65 inches.

2.85 - 1.65 = 1.2

1.2 / 2 = .6

So sliced the horizontal pieces by .6 (front, back, left, right) which left a top and bottom long center piece. I could have also cut at .6 but I'm worried about the bit carve angle so reduced the depth of cut to .45.

So it comes out to a 6 piece slice. Still will not be perfect. It will still have some deformation at the edges.

P.S. I did not see Dan's example before posting. His will be better. He's smarter at math than I am. :)

[Durtdawber]

Thanks to everyone. I'm not sure any one solution will do it but I got some great ideas with all of the knowledge input.

If anyone else has an idea, be sure to post it up.

Connie, if you see this, how about getting one of the on-staff "Pros" to give us their take on this.

Donnie