carving 1/4 " fret board

[bjmwoodworker]

I am a newbe ... just got my cw last week. I want to carve using 1/4 inch board. how do I tell the machine to do this? I have a design and I set the depth at .250 and uploaded to card. Unfortunately, the project pattern shows up on the machine as 1/2 inch depth. I needs some help! can someone point me to a manual or post that covers this kind of project? Thanks for the help!

[bergerud]

1/4" is too thin. You have to glue, tape, or somehow fasten your 1/4" inch board to another board to make it thicker. The minimum thickness is 1/2".

[liquidguitars]

I use a 3/4 thick sled to make them, also cut frets and Lp crown inlay after the compound r :

http://www.youtube.com/user/Liquidgu...34/JIFKsBf6ONU

[Digitalwoodshop]

FIRST POST !!!!!! WELCOME !!!!!

LG makes that look EASY.... It really IS....

I am going to give you some Homework as many of your setup questions are addressed in what we call Tips and Tricks on the CarveWright Website. We also Call it Pilot Error when you run into a problem that is explained in Tips and Tricks or the Owners Manual.

So your on the Correct Track asking questions hear... WE are hear to HELP....

So there are a few issues here...

1. You want to Cut Frets on a Thin Strip of Wood....

To do this you will need a Carrier Board or Sled.... For 2 reasons... 1 is the machine likes 3/4 inch thick wood but will cut 1/2 inch thick wood.... Sometimes.... And 2. The 1/4 inch wood you want to cut needs to be thicker... Hence... You use double stick tape to hold the thin piece solid on a thicker carrier board...

The Pictures show I Vector Cut Tags 1/8 of an inch thick double stick taped to a thicker carrier board....

Take a 3/4 inch quality board that is flat and square. Get some strips of the material you are going to work with, like the 1/4 inch strips.

Since you will be cutting Frets then you will need wood on each side of the Fret Board as the Top Rollers need this un touched or un carved wood to support the Rollers. IF you cut the full width of the board then the Roller would fall down into the Fret and the Machine
would JAM and possibly Snap the Bit and X Drive Gear.

SO picture a few strips of Floor Wood... You place one in the middle of the board. You then place a strip on either side and 2 end pieces. Making the Sled so the center board can pop out... You can use double sticky tape to hold the wood strips to the carrier board. You design your Art to just cut the center board, drawing the Designer or Computer Board the same width as your physical board. Now for Length... I would design the Carrier Board with the Designer Art starting 4 inches from the right side of designer and leaving that area blank. There is a thing called the 7 inch rule.... That is the distance between the top Rollers that hold the board down... 3.5 from the bit in either direction. You want to have both rollers holding the wood flat to the table. Only one roller and the board can tip up snapping the bit and changing the depth of your cut... So THINK 2 rollers all the time..... The 4 inch dead area on the right side of designer works for the head end, or the first end going in the machine.... And leaving the sled long will take care of the other end.... The machine will ask you... Stay under ROLLERS Yes or NO.... Say YES and the board is too short then the Artwork will SCALE down in size after subtracting 7 inches from your board and placing the Art in what is left over.....


Now that has got to have you Totally Confused...... Well, it is ALL in Tips and Tricks written by better Writers than I with PICTURES.... Because Staying Under Rollers, Scaling, and Board Setup are things that WE ALL Tripped over when starting up.... Even Me.... That is why we wrote Tips and Tricks....

And something you will learn..... Normally when we cut a Recessed Area (FRET) or a hole or slot in a board we use a Carve Region and the machine cuts this with the Carving Bit.... In LG's Video He actually Drew some lines or Vectors and assigned a bit to it with a depth... This let the bit cut like drawing a line.... He is a Extreme Advanced User as seen by his projects.... You will need to understand Vector Cutting with the CW before you try it... It is possible to damage the machine by trying to cut toooooooo much.... Toooooooo Deep.... So SLOW Steps... LEARN the Machine.... YES it can cut FRETS.....

The Carrier Board is setup for a 12 x 24 piece of plastic with a 4 inch piece on the end and a long board so I tell the machine to NOT stay under the Rollers and it is done by the Artwork.... I also use "Place on END or Corner" 99% of the time... Never Center on Board... It measures the board TWICE for more wear and tear...

AL


Good Luck,


AL

[b.sumner47]

Welcome Aboard !

Capt Barry

[bjmwoodworker]

Sorry I guess that I didn't really make myself clear as I wasn't talking about guitar frets, rather I was talking about fretwork such as scrollsawing. I did learn some interesting ideas tho... thanks to all that responded... still looking for answers tho. I did put 1/4 " board on 3/4 " board but it cuts thru all of the boards. I think that my problem is that I don't understand the software yet! Glad to be aboard!

[Digitalwoodshop]

See how I cut my Tags out... That is what you want to do with wood.... So what you are going to need to do is use double stick tape on the whole board. Any of the little cut out areas that pop out of the art will be rolled over by the rubber rollers. This could cause a change in depth or a X Axis Jam and a snapped X Gear.

I tried this with poor success.... And I even used the 1/16th End Mill bit and selected the 1/4 bull nose in Designer to lock the feed rate into 1st gear or slow. Normal Vector Cuts are 2 speed.... Faster on the long areas. So you would need to hand draw all the Vectors or get a Vector Drawing in Corel and buy the DFX software to convert the lines into Vectors for the CW. You would then set the Depth of cut to just cut through the 1/4 inch wood. Cut Path leaving tabs does not work for 1/4 inch from what I remember.

You could also do what a Good Carve Buddy that passed away this summer did... He perfected the name tag FONT for the CW... HE set the depth of the Vector just shy of cutting thought the solid wood. Then ran the project through his thickness sander to remove the bottom skin. I believe he used Vinyl Transfer Tape on the Top before flipping it to the bottom to sand off the skin.

This Vector Type work is better for a 60 Watt Laser Engraver.... BUT many HATE the Chocolate Brown Burned Edges.... The CW would simulate the Scroll Saw type work...

Good Luck,

AL

[mtylerfl]

...Cut Path leaving tabs does not work for 1/4 inch from what I remember.

Just to add...Yes, you can have a regular cut path with auto-tabs on 1/4" material....and it works very well for most projects.
Of course, you do need to use a carrier board/jig/sled to meet or exceed the minimum 1/2"-thickness required by the machine.

See the following Tips & Tricks (pages 3 through 5) for a step-by-step "how-to" for cutouts on thin material using standard cut paths...http://www.carvewright.com/downloads...cks_Sept08.pdf

[bjmwoodworker]

Thanks guys for your responses!!! the tips and tricks article I must have missed but it is right on the mark and glad I can now use the tabs feature as using double back tape is a pain. Btw I have use carpet double back tape and it works great. Also I use the microwave trick to remove it when I want to remove it! Thanks again for the help all!! I like the forum ... has a lot of great tips and new friends to talk to for help!

[Digitalwoodshop]

THANK YOU MT.... While I am in Detention I will be reading Tips and Tricks... It is never to late to teach a old dog new tricks.... I will follow my own advice and read tips and tricks too.... LOL.... Yes, I did learn something.... Thanks MT....

AL