Try It or Buy It is not so Obvious

[JamesHuntsville]

Four days ago I posted a question about (try it or buy it) option for the patterns. I only received one reply that simply stated that it was obvious and WYSIWYG. OK, let me bring you up to date. I was interested in the Victorian House Project. The picture on the CarveWright Pattern Post e-mail I received. It had a really nice look and I thought that it would be interesting to do that one. Well after $107.00 for the pattern and $34.00 for a 1"x12"x8' piece of Popular, I loaded the pattern on the card and cut the board to the proper length as per the tutoral. I put the card and board in the machine and watched and waited for a grand project to emerge from the machine. The carving was very good and detailed. Everything went ok until the machine commenced to route the cut path and then the project went South. The first two pieces routed fine. The largest piece routed the first pass and then something went terribly wrong because the 1/8 cutting bit left the intended path and went through the center of the adjoining piece. I stopped the machine and thought maybe I had done something wrong, so I loaded another piece of board (this time cherry) and commenced to carve the project a second time. Everything went ok until the routing started again. This time the 1/8 cutting bit did not follow the cut path which was supposed to be obvious in the try it or buy it selection. Believe me when I say WYS is not WYG. I wasted over $45.00 worth of Popular and cherry boards, paid $107.00 for a pattern that is useless, and used almost 15 hours of my machine warranty all for nothing. If you have purchased this pattern and it turned out good, then I am glad for you. I would not recommend anybody purchase this pattern unless you can carve it first to see the results. I can't replace the boards, they are gone but I wish there was some way I could get the money back for the pattern. I might be able to salvage something with several hours of work on the scroll saw trying to clean up what the machine made a mess of. There will be a lot of trimming with the scroll saw to clean and remove the excess wood the machine did not cut out that it should have. I will try to post some pictures of the carving if this site will allow them. I think the project would really look nice if there could be some way to correct the pattern cut path.

http://pic15.picturetrail.com/VOL586/3642218/19733038/321050644.jpg

http://pic15.picturetrail.com/VOL586/3642218/19733038/321050641.jpg

http://pic15.picturetrail.com/VOL586/3642218/19733038/321050629.jpg

http://pic15.picturetrail.com/VOL586/3642218/19733038/321050637.jpg

I want to apologize if I have offended anyone with this post. That was not my intention at all, I just wanted to show you that you don't always get what you think you are getting. I have really enjoyed using this CarveWright machine since my purchase, and I have carved several really nice projects. I am just disappointed that I spent so much on this project for nothing.

James
Huntsville, Tx.

[mtylerfl]

James,

So sorry to hear you had bad luck with your board not tracking properly. I assure you - it's not the pattern at fault. It's a well-proven pattern and will carve / cut perfectly.

You'll need to troubleshoot your machine to find out what exactly what went wrong. Check your brass sensor roller to make sure the rubber O-ring is still in place and not damaged. Also, make sure you don't have the sliding plate too tight against your board. Aside from possible board edge defects, those are the two things that I suspect may have caused your problems. Also, be sure that you did not accidentally move, rotate or resize any of the elements on the mpc that could have caused misalignment.

Also, I have indeed found that the software does very well with WYSIWYG. Not sure why you are having a different experience with that.

If you need further assistance in troubleshooting, let us know!

[www.go3d.us]

Sorry to hear and see that.

I don't like cut path feature at all. A scroll saw or band saw will do a better cut out job. When setting up your pattern, select 1/8" feather it will help reduce the carve time thus make the cut out easier with the band saw.

I always spent extra time create the cut out manually for some of my pattern that required cut out so it come out clean.

HT

[castingman]

I have been trying to buy the pattern and can't . They won't let me log in !

Michael

[mtylerfl]

Hello,

Decided to take some photos of an unfinished Victorian House so all can see what it's SUPPOSED to look like after taking it out fresh off the machine. This is with no clean up whatsoever and still in the board.

I have carved/cut three of them (so far) and have two more folks waiting for theirs. This is one that I haven't taken out of the board yet (plain pine). It breaks my heart that James had such bad luck, especially on precious cherry wood!! - but hopefully we can figure out what went wrong at his end so it won't happen to him ever again.

If the board is tracking properly and there are no issues with the machine, this is what you should expect raw out of the machine...

[Dan-Woodman]

Could the cutpath have been changed to cut outside the line. It almost looks like that , or else board slippage.
later Daniel

[mtylerfl]

Could the cutpath have been changed to cut outside the line. It almost looks like that , or else board slippage.
later Daniel

The cutpath is already set to cut out properly on the outside. The current "most likely" theory is that James probably had board binding, board slipping, or dust particles got on his encoder causing the weird cutpath error he experienced.

The only thing we know for certain is that it's not a problem with the pattern itself. I've spoken to LHR and they have confirmed that it is apparently related to a possible issue with James' particular machine which they are currently investigating.

[Digitalwoodshop]

I have been putting 2 strips of masking tape on my boards lately. I have had 2 tracking errors in 50 carves and cut path. It came down to a slightly warped board with a slight hump in the board lengthwise. The other was a poor factory edge on the board that contacted the left rail and it snagged.

As far as the cut path, I do find it useful as I am not that skilled with the scroll saw. I have 2 Sears models, one has a speed control and last time I fired it up it went to max RPM and quit dead... It is on the back burner.... I have some half carved Christmas Ornaments from last year to scroll saw someday.

I would say that Tracking error is the problem. Use tape....

AL

Had another thought looking at your wood. What are you using for dust collection. The sawdust builds up in the center and like your car tires in snow... The sawdust builds up in front of the rollers and the board can't push through it....