board jigs, sleds, carriers

[Jim P]

Hello,

I am looking for anyone with experience using jigs, sleds, or carriers for loading and cutting projects.

Jim

[oscarl48]

Jim,

Was there a specific project you were looking a jig for?

I only have limited experience with jigs. I purchased the Universal Carrier Base off on the pattern depot and use that when my wood is really twisted otherwise I just tape end pieces to get the needed length of the board to minimize waste.

https://store.carvewright.com/produc...roductid=25240

Most of the guys on here have a ton more experience than I do. Hopefully they join in the discussion.

Oscar

[Jim P]

Hello,

Thanks for your reply. I am looking to find some commentary for discussions about jigs.

I have been exploring the use of the jigs.
1. minimizing the 7-inch board losses for repetitive projects
2. custom means for holding your "guitar" project body
3. be able to flip from one side to the other of a 3D body
4. position, remove, and position for repetitive cutting tasks such as rough cuts followed by finer cuts

What have been your uses of cutting jigs?

Regards,
JIm

[oscarl48]

Please take everything with a grain of salt. I only use jigs occasionally.

1. I tape a pieces of lumber "3.5 inches" on either side of the piece so the CW sees the full length +7 inch board. The universal carrier base gets rid of this requirement but I still use the tape 3.5inch piece for a lot of my projects.
https://support.carvewright.com/carv...eds-and-rails/

2. If you are doing post carving then I would make a custom jig to hold the piece. Double stick tape of other means to hold it down. The two rollers normally provide the downward pressure to hold the piece down.

3. The software should be able to handle that easily. Look up double sided carves.
https://support.carvewright.com/two-...ve-techniques/

4. Not sure on this one. The machine will measure the size of the board and do the programmed carving. Typically you would do one piece at a time with multiple bits but if you are talking about doing multiple pieces with one bit and then change bits for a second pass then I have never tried that.

Hopefully someone with more experience will pipe in.

[fwharris]

Hello,

Thanks for your reply. I am looking to find some commentary for discussions about jigs.

I have been exploring the use of the jigs.
1. minimizing the 7-inch board losses for repetitive projects
2. custom means for holding your "guitar" project body
3. be able to flip from one side to the other of a 3D body
4. position, remove, and position for repetitive cutting tasks such as rough cuts followed by finer cuts

What have been your uses of cutting jigs?

Regards,
JIm

If you will be doing special types of carvings like guitar bodies I suggest that you set up a large board/piece on a carrier board. Set up your design to first cut out the body size shape of the board that will go into the jig board set up for making the guitar body.

You can also set up another jig to hold the cut out guitar body for doing other carvings on it One for the front side and another for the back side.

[Jim P]

Hello Oscarl48,

I have been using the Carvewright CX for some time now and only begining to understand how to use the Forum. Using the sled greatly interests me to churn out small arts and crafts that supplement my retirement salary. The sled provides a convenient way to load up a sequence of small items for a production run for my needs.

But first, I need to use the Reference materials and manuals provided in the Forum to use the Carvewright better. I already find it indispensable for diagnosing common runtime and failure modes. The machine is very well designed, and the software is extremely well done. At some time I would love to talk to the engineers who designed this product for both mechanical and software considerations. My current goal is to find a niche here to communicate with others.

Jim

[oscarl48]

Jim,

That is awesome. Best of luck with your efforts.

There is a small group of us left on the forum. The majority of the folks have moved on to Facebook or so I'm told because I don't use it. All the folks on here are gracious and a pretty cool bunch.

I primarily do my patterns using 3rd party software and bring them into Designer with either STL files or grey scale height maps. I can help if you are using any of those methods for your patterns.

R/
Oscar

[Mugsowner]

Like Oscar stated, there are not many of us left here as most have move on to greener pastures, but the grass is not always greener over there. We still try to help where ever we can, don't be afraid to ask, we will try to help if we can.

[Jim P]

Hello Oscar and Mugsowner,

It is a pleasure to hear from you both. The Carvewright system is a complicated mechanical and software system to deal with when unexpected things happen. I was just working on a devil of a problem for the last 4 days where I was getting "abort or retry", "swing plate", "board thickness", and "track wheel" issues. Eventually, I was able to sort through numerous other error messages with help from the forum, email, and reference material the worn track wheel O-ring and a miss configured 1/16" cutter configuration. The cutter had been inappropriately installed in the cutter bushing for the chuck by about 1/8". This meant that the cutter had to be lowered by that distance in the chuck for the proper surface contacting of the swing plate for electrical recognition. Problem solved!

Overall the carvewright design and implementation are amazing, but unfortunately in troubleshooting such a problem, there is no substitute for an intimate knowledge of the mechanical design and software implementation to understand how to solve such problems. This is the largest barrier to overcome with such a system. I haven't had such a challenge in evaluating since my previous engineering experience while I was employed building automated screening and synthesis automation for the biotech industry. There is definitely a right of passage required for the use of the Carvewright CX!

One other mystery that I have noticed is the workpiece's maximum size specification 144' x 14.5" x5". The 5" specification must come from the rotary jig use consideration. Who would be likely to cut a 12' x 14.5" x 5" plank?

The other question that I need to explore is how the Universal Carrier Board (UCB) determines board width. It would seem that such a design would not be using the electrical contact of the brass tracker wheel and swing plate. Any Ideas?

Best Regards,
Jim

[want2b]

My understanding is the board width is measure by the sensor on the bottom of the head. It registers the light 'reflected' from the board and when it goes past the edge the reading change tells the width( same used for length). Have had dark boards that I had to position a light over to get enough difference in readings so it could measure. On the UCB you 'paint' black areas on each rail and jig the UCB to that area and the width is measured there. I believe the brass wheel keeps track of the boards position for length for Y dimensions, not width. The swing plate is one of the points the bit uses in X measurement along with the sliding plate and it also touches the position encoder assembly.
I don't know which points are used to create references for the different thickness/height needs
Hopefully others will be able to clarify this more. Good luck, it is a cool machine if at times frustrating.