reclaimed lumber and masking tape?

Mr. Lamb was nice enough to share some great trains with me. I attempted to cut them with the carvewright but no success. So I thought I might try my cnc. He directed me to his source for stl and I went. LOL I was so flattered. Obviously he thinks I'm a rocket scientist. Anyhow after thinking on it, I decided the problem is my wood is not a solid plank. Its heavy which I thought at first was the problem. After taping one inch boards to the length on each side I was able to get the machine to measure the width, however it will not measure the length? It rolls almost to the end and then stalls. I used clear packing tape. Perhaps a piece of duck tape on both end would work? The plank I want to use in from a wooden train bridge and has a beautiful patina but it is not uniform. There is plenty room for the train to be carved. It's about 10" x 38" and 2" thick. Any suggestions? Don't go rocket on me. This is like my third carve, one ok and one a pattern from the shop for spice rack and that was a total loss of a nice piece of cherry. Susan

Use masking tape. It has to see a consistent color. A light color (not white) is preferred. The board sensor also has trouble reading dark colors, so again masking tape (beige) is the answer.

Susan,

To see what would happen, I carved an old uneven piece of 2 X 10.
It worked well for me and perhaps you could do your project this way.

You are working with quite a bit of weight and I hesitate to add weight to it,
but with some supports for the ends, you should be OK.

I screwed rails on each side of the board, but other fasteners could be used.
Just make sure that the sensor has something good to see across the ends.
And, of course, make sure that the brass roller has something good to contact.

I just used masking tape to provide something for the sensor to measure by.

Attachment 67267 Attachment 67269 Attachment 67268

That is really a great idea, Ken. Thanks for sharing it. It seems to be a lot easier than building sleds as long as the side pieces can be attached without compromising the work piece...

Docwheeler, you beat me to it on the forum, I use that method for odd pieces of wood all the time.
I added some end pieces to hold that 2" block and it came out great, the other sled is for the top.

Thanks everyone for the help. I see what you are saying. Thanks for the pictures. They make all the difference for me. I will get the right tape and try again. I can hardly wait to try again. Susan

On your frame (sled) you have end pieces, so are they 3.5" to make up for the waste that the machine makes when measuring the carve area? I have some pieces like this in cypress, I would love to make them into something useful, picture can be miss leading though, what size is that wood? I'm thinking that is a large square, however it may in fact be quite small? I guess my question is how did you know it would carve your board and not the sled? Susan

This looks like an easy fix, i will try this on mine, thanks for pictures. Susan

the 3rd pic show a block 11.25 sq. x 1 7/8" thick. I used 20 "( round off) side rails, I like to use 4' end pieces. I put some 3/4"
filler wood on the bottom to hold the block sq. in the center of the sled and put tape over the top. I did not want to screw in to the sides of the block.
The top sled is 3/4" same as the carving board and lite, so I did the same thing 20" rails and 4" filler wood.