Help with my machine

[Raidcore]

Hello everyone,

I just got my CompuCarve machine this weekend. Its everything that I had hoped that it would be... I have lost a lot of hours of sleep trying out different things.... anyway...

I was wondering if there were any other CompuCarve owners in the Sacramento area that have had there machine a while and are proficient with it. I have a few things that I want to do and I'm not totally sure how to go about it. I am a very visual and hands on learner. If there is possibly someone in my area with one and who is willing, I would like to get in touch with them and see if we could meet and possibly spend a hour or two going through what I want to do and just help me get a little more familiar/comfortable with my machine.

hope that all makes sense... reading it back just now it sounded better in my head!




Mat
__________________________________________________ ______________________

Sex is like math you add the bed subtract the clothes and pray you don't multiply

[jwhllh55]

But I'll help if I can. What exactly are you wanting to do first off. How many project are you thinking of doing?
John Hammett
Baker City,OR

[JVallario]

Hi Mat and welcome. I'm not in Sac (though I did live there for some years)but I'm about 2 hours away by Santa Rosa. I'm a fairly new user myself having been at this since July. I'd be happy to help where I can. Good to hear of another NorCal Carver.

[Raidcore]

Thanks for the replies.


I am wanting to do:

1.) a set of Rummikub (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rummikub) tiles. and the stands for them. I have not done any routing yet with my machine and was planning to try sometime next week. The tiles and the routing seem straight forward but the stands for each player are my stick point. I don't know if you can see them in the second picture of the link, but I am thinking that I would just do two rectangles of different depths on the piece of wood to get the stair effect. Also I would need at least a carrier board for this correct?

2).I have the plans drawn up for a robot base that I would like to route out. This is basically an off shoot of 1.

3.) I would like to carve on Plexiglas. I know that I will need at least a carrier board (I'm going to make a sled though). I was hoping that I could do very shallow carvings similar to the lithophane. I was going to use the tutorial for it to carve some stuff on some 1/8 Plexiglas. Will it be possible or is that too thin of material?

4.) I feel like everything I am doing might mess something up and that I am doing it the hard way. I would be nice to see some one use there's and get a better feel for it than just jumping in.

5.) I have the plans drawn up for a robot base that I would like to route out. This is basically an off shoot of 1.


Questions:
1.) You need to have 3.5 inches per end to be able to carve the whole face lengthwise. What are the requirements for side to side? I think that its 1/4 of an inch.

2.) What is the best wood to carve in to get good details out of? I was thinking maybe oak....

3.) I have a few random pictures that I set to carve and they carved out deeper than I wanted them to. I adjusted the depth option but it didn't help. Am I using the correct adjustment?

4.) Do they have a book that you can get about how to use the Designer software? Something with explanations and examples?

5.) What isn't there enough time in the day to experiment with my machine?


Thanks for your time

[Raidcore]

I was looking at the stuff that is here on the carvewright web site and i was wondering if it would be possible to carve both sides of the corbels and how you would do it. i know that you would have to flip the board over but in what orientation.

instructions
http://www.carvewright.com/downloads/tips/CarveWright_Tips_and_Tricks_Feb08.pdf

file
http://www.carvebuddy.com/FreePatterns/Corbel_Project1.zip


Thanks again

[fwharris]

I was looking at the stuff that is here on the carvewright web site and i was wondering if it would be possible to carve both sides of the corbels and how you would do it. i know that you would have to flip the board over but in what orientation.

instructions
http://www.carvewright.com/downloads/tips/CarveWright_Tips_and_Tricks_Feb08.pdf

file
http://www.carvebuddy.com/FreePatterns/Corbel_Project1.zip


Thanks again

Raidcore,

If you are doing a double sided carve you will flip the board side to side not end to end. When you slide the board out of the CW rotate the side closest to the key board so that it now at the back side of the CW.

Not sure if you have printed out the tips&tricks or not. I did and have them in a note book so I have them right at the machine or computer when trying new functions. Makes the visual/mechanical concepts fall into place for me.

Nice job of reading the T&T and you know where to get those other answers!

[HelpBot3000]

Hi Raidcore!

If you are looking for help with the designer software, in addition to the Tips & Tricks, I suggest checking out Michael Tyler's (who by the way writes those T&T newsletters) website, http://www.carvebuddy.com . Its a wealth of information.