carving centerline

[woodchip]

Just curious, has anyone used centreline with the 1/16 carving bit and how did it look? at the moment my machine is on the fritz and I'm afraid to try it.

[Dan-Woodman]

Depending on the size of your font, it would just be a 1/16" slot the shape of yor bit. You can get it into designer and run the cursor over it to see how deep the rout is. A lot of the fonts have squared up corners , so your 1/16" bit would not look good doing that. V-bits are the way to go for Centerline. 90 or 60 degree V-bit. 60 for small lettering, 90 for larger, and 90 using "outline" for even larger fonts. If the font does not have squared corners and just one line making the letter , the a roundnose bit will work also.

[woodchip]

Thanks, was a little afraid to try right now.
Don

[Digitalwoodshop]

For very small text it might work... I know when I designed some V90 text about a inch high and accidental installed a V60 bit, the text came out where a "I" would look like 2 "Y's" one up side down as the clean out of the top and bottom of the stroke was expecting the MASS of the V90 to do the cleaning.

Bet you find similar... You could try a Single Stroke Font like Modern and use Outline Mode and make the text small and use a 1/16th inch.

I use a 3/8 plunge bit with a flat bottom to do 2 inch high Modern Font text .1 deep. The smaller the text the smaller the bit used. I use a 1/2 or 3/4 inch bit for 4 inch high letters.

AL

[chebytrk]

Is there a way in to fooling the CW when using centerline and trying to use something other than a V60 or V90? I purchased something smaller than a V60 because I really need to make smaller text carvings (something like a etched name plate that some put on a plaques & trophies). I keep trying to figure out a way around using a smaller Vbit for text. Sure wish there was a way that we could set the depth in Centerline. Maybe a wishlist item? I guess one way that was suggested was using a "shim" when the CW is measuring and set up the V60/V90 bit. Remove the "shim" off the board when the carving starts by pausing the machine. OR setting the Vbit a little longer (further out in the adapter) and then pushing it in right before the carving starts. OK... I know I answered the fooling the CW part, just looking to see if there's anything else out there that someone can recommend. I just want to use my new V22 bit without messing it up.

[unitedcases]

A trick for text that steve price taught me is to do a subtractive raster carve for the text. Place a square and make it into a carving area and set the depth to zero. I have been using this and it cuts my big jobs down considerably. It just uses the carving bit for the whole project.

[chebytrk]

Very cool! Have you tried carving real small text and had it come out OK? I'm trying to make text with a height about 1/4" or maybe even 1/8" without carving it too deep.

A trick for text that steve price taught me is to do a subtractive raster carve for the text. Place a square and make it into a carving area and set the depth to zero. I have been using this and it cuts my big jobs down considerably. It just uses the carving bit for the whole project.

[unitedcases]

The smallest I have gone is 1/2 inch. But with good results.

[CNC Carver]

A trick for text that steve price taught me is to do a subtractive raster carve for the text. Place a square and make it into a carving area and set the depth to zero. I have been using this and it cuts my big jobs down considerably. It just uses the carving bit for the whole project.

Do you have an example of how to subtractive raster carve? Sounds like it would work nice to speed up some carvings.

[bergerud]

A trick for text that steve price taught me is to do a subtractive raster carve for the text. Place a square and make it into a carving area and set the depth to zero. I have been using this and it cuts my big jobs down considerably. It just uses the carving bit for the whole project.

How is this different than just inverting the raster text?