Question For All You Smart People Out There

[cnsranch]

I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around this.....

My son wants to add some carvings to the stock of an old rifle he has...not a valuable piece, so there's no threat in trashing it's value.

He's also asked me about using the CW to carve an entirely new stock - this, of course, would be accomplished by scanning the existing one, and having a go at it. Real problem here would be creating all the areas for the trigger mechanisms, etc., something I'm not up to going after (I'm not an artist - that's why I own a Carvewright).

However, with adding carvings to an existing stock (or baseball bat, for that matter) - here's my brain cramp -

Scan the existing stock, now I have the proper surface contours to add my carvings, text, whatever. Do my magic in Designer, get my design right, get ready to carve - now what?

How do I place the existing stock in the machine (I know it has to go in a sled/carrier), and guarantee that the carve will go exactly where I want it to? My first guess is that you have to build the sled the exact same dimension as Designer's board, and that the stock has to be placed in the sled at the exact same place as the "scan" that's been created and put on Designer's board.

But, carving on an existing surface like this, it has to be spot on.

Is there an option during the machine's spin-up where you tell it where to begin the carve (like jog to touch)? That would be the easiest option, at least to me.

Does any of this make sense? Seems like too many variables to give it a go.

[RMarkey]

You could try only scanning the part where you want the words to go. Mark the edges on the stock with tape so you can find the corner later when you do the carve.
Bring that into a project of the same size, then place your letters and set 'conform' if centerlining.
Upload and 'jog to corner' when running the project. Jog to the corner you marked with the tape.
Let the machine 'carve' but remove the bit so you don't touch the stock. When its done, switch to the 60 or 90 bit and let it finish.

[cnsranch]

So, regardless of the size of the Virtual Board, or the size of the "Real" board, and/or where on the Virtual Board you have the design/carve, if you jog to corner the machine will carve the design from that point?

[RMarkey]

Jog to corner is positioning the corner of the virtual board onto the actual board.

[dbfletcher]

Jog to corner is positioning the corner of the virtual board onto the actual board.

I've always been afaird to try that with double sided carves when the physical board is wider than the virtual. Does the software take that in to consideration when flipping the board? I've always just used center for that reason so the virtual board is centered on the physical regardless of which side.

[cnsranch]

I'm still not there, yet.

I understand what Metallus is saying with regard to letting the machine "air carve" the first part - after all, the stock has the correct surface contours, and there's no need to do that again. So, let's say that I'm going to scan an area of the stock that's just 3"x3", towards the butt of the stock.

I take that into Designer, make it a pattern, add it to the Virtual Board, then add either another pattern to it, or some kind of text (can't I use the Vector Conform for the added pattern as well as the text?).

Here's where I'm now stuck - when I bring the design into the machine, the machine wants to find the surface of the board I'm going to carve. It assumes that the board is flat, and that it's going to carve the contour, as well as the pattern within the contour. But, we're going to fool the machine, and "air carve" the contour, stop the machine before it goes to the second step, add a bit, and let it finish the project. But, if the contour of the stock is even a tiny bit below the "Virtual Board's" surface, the whole thing will be wrong when the machine goes to find the surface with the carving bit.

Is it as simple as making sure that one (very small) part of the contour pattern is at the surface of the Virtual Board - and that I jog to that position when the machine is measuring? That may work, but there seems to be too much margin for human error..

Back when we were fooling the machine when we wanted to do centerline in a carve region, doing a 2-part carve was fairly easy, assuming that the surface you wanted to add the text was flat - but with a curved surface, it's completely different.

I wonder how difficult (or how many folks would like this added to the software) it would be for the programmers to allow us to scan a surface, and then make that the surface of our Virtual Board? That way, the machine knows the surface is contoured, not flat, and adding patterns, etc., would be a piece of cake.

Any thoughts?

[DickB]

I would use a sled with rails 1" wide and as tall as the stock. That way, the bit will touch only the rail to find the height of the project.

Lay out your project on a virtual board the same size as your sled. Position the 3x3 area on your project where your gun stock will be. Position your stock on the sled to match.

You could place a rectangular scrap board on the sled first and run a test carve to verify the exact place to locate your stock. When you carve the stock, there will be no need to stop and start; just run the project as with the test board.

Depending upon exactly what you want to carve, you might be able to place your scanned stock pattern a fraction of an inch higher than the stock is tall, and your carving a fraction lower than you otherwise would to compensate. That way, the bit would fly just above the gun stock surface most of the time.

Not saying that this project would be easy to do, but it sounds interesting and could be made to work I think..

[Dan-Woodman]

I don't have a scanner , but you should be able to edit a scanned project with pattern editor and skip the accual carving the profile part moving right on to text or a carved pattern. Or use the same sled to scann and without removing the stock from sled use it to carve a pattern.
later Daniel

[dougmsbbs]

I have done this, added a carving to an existing object. Use the same sled for scanning and carving. Make sure the object is well supported on the sled. Any moving, tilting, walking, dancing or wiggling ruins everything. Don't remove the object from the sled! Before scanning I put two pieces of tape in a 'T' on the object just outside the area I wanted to add the carving. The scanner will pick up the tape and you can see it on the scan. Don't remove the tape! The tape gives me a visual reference between the start of the scan, in the pattern editor, and then on the piece to know where to start carving.
Then take the scan into the pattern editor and erase everything outside of the taped area, right up to where the two pieces of tape meet. That way your not air carving any more than you really need to. Add your text or whatever to the pattern in designer. When you go to carve, jog to position right where the two pieces of tape come together. Then you know your starting in the right place. I did like DickB suggests, setting the scanned pattern a bit shallower and the new carving just a bit deeper. Works like a charm as long as the piece does not move at all between scanning and carving. When your carving on a curved piece, like a gun stock, it takes very little movement to make a mess of it. Hold it steady and it's works great.
The hardest part of it was making sure the gun stock didn't move. I used scraps of wood, foam, anything I could find that would hold it into position.
I did all that for a friend who really likes his guns. When the carving was done I used a dremel to undercut the carving a bit in a few places, and poured tinted epoxy in. The undercut was to make sure the epoxy didn't pop out later. When all was said and done he had an vector carving of a deer head and his initials inlaid into the gun stock. He really liked it. He came by and got it before the epoxy was really even set up, so I didn't get any pictures... sigh...
I'm sure there are a lot of easier ways than this, but it worked for me.

[dougmsbbs]

I should add that I learned all that by practicing on my sons pellet rifle first. Thats where I learned that letting the stock tilt even a little between scan and carving is not a good thing!