5 Attachment(s)
Bit Optmization and Floor Feather
By default, when carving a pattern the center of the bit will follow the contour of the pattern. I’ve used the 3/16” ballnose carving bit to emphasize the result with our half-cylinder pattern:
Attachment 86081
While the tip of bit follows the pattern, because of the width of the bit the resulting carving is not a perfect semicircle like we want.
Fortunately there is a solution: Bit Optimization. With our pattern selected, click on Bit Optimization and select Best. Now the software will take into account the width of the tip of the bit, and carve the semicircle that we are looking for:
Attachment 86082
In Designer Pro, there is a feature called Floor Feather. Without going into a lot of detail, this feature was implemented to make feathering more pleasing when the pattern’s periphery does not have a uniform depth. It forces the entire periphery of the pattern to be equal to the lowest part. This is nice in some cases, but for our pattern it is not. Here is an illustration of our pattern in Designer Pro with Floor Feather disabled (left) and enabled (right):
Attachment 86083
We do not want to use Floor Feather! Unfortunately, in the latest version of Designer Basic, Floor Feather is always enabled, and there is no way to turn it off!
However, as it happens, when Bit Optimization is enabled for a pattern, it virtually eliminates the Floor Feather result. Not entirely – can you see the small “lip” at the edges of our half-cylinder in Designer Basic and in the resulting carving?
Attachment 86084 Attachment 86085
This can be a problem in some cases. For us it is not going to be a problem, because we are going to carve our cylinder slightly undersized, then finish with a 3/8” drill bit. So this small defect will not matter.
Next, we will work on creating a pattern to make the hexagon-shaped outside of our cylinder.