less than desired quality of carvings

[JCBROTZ]

Hello I picked up my compu-carve last week and have been playing around with it trying to everything from cut outs to picture carvings the quality is not what I was expecting with the cut outs I'm trying to onlays for cabinets and the edges of the cuts you see each cut and am getting some fairly rough edges. Probably something I'm doing but need some guidence so I can be happy with me purchase.

thanks,
Charlie

[BobHill]

JC,

How about entering in a photo image of what you are attempting as well as the MPC file you are using to cut/carve with? That'll give us all a chance to perhaps find the problem.

Bob

[JCBROTZ]

Here is one of the projects that I am trying to carve that turned out rough. I am just uploading a photo project to carve that I adjusted some setting to see the results. I'm going to see if I have any luck this time.

[SpiffyDog]

What kind of wood are you using?

[Dan-Woodman]

after you upload the project , what quality setting are you selecting.
You have a choice of draft , normal or best.

[David M.]

The other thing you should look into is the BIT OPTIMIZE feature, I've done some carviongs with and without this feature and using it improves your finished carving dramaticly. However don't apply the feature till your done designing, it take a lot of processing time if it's turn on while you are still designing.

[JCBROTZ]

I've tried white oak, Black walnut and cherry so far and have about the same results with all of them. I have it set to best and also have used and not used bit optimzation that probably helped the most but I still can not use any of the cut outs that I have made. The all have vertical lines at each pass and lots of roughness.

[JCBROTZ]

should I expect very smooth carvings or just somewhat smooth I don't think that I am expecting to much in thinking that they should be 90% smooth and not having to do alot of sanding/scraping to get them to be usable. I looked in the project forum and they all looked extremely smooth.

Thanks,
Charlie

[Jeff_Birt]

Do you have a picture of the vertical line? This sounds like a loose Z-truck. Grab a hold of the Z-truck and try to wiggle it. There should be NO play in the bearings.

[JCBROTZ]

unfortunatly I'm at work and don't have a pic right now but I will get one tomarrow I will also give the Z truck a wiggle and let you know. The depths of the holes on some of the inlays are different and some don't go all the way thru. I suspect this is all related hopefully tomarrow I will get a hold of Sears and Carvewright to get to this figuired out.