First Lithopane

[davemartin88]

Finally got up the nerve to use a piece of my Corian stash to try a lithopane. This is a piece of 5"x7" white, 1/4" thick Corian I bought on Ebay. Picture is of my mom who is 80 now, I think she'll get a kick out of it. I was having a hard time realizing how the final effort was going to look once it was in front of a light source, not really clear from the preview just how well it was going to turn out but have a better sense now of some of the options, etc. Sure it's not perfect but I'm happy with how it turned out, what an amazing, simple to use program.

[tonydude919]

That came out real good for first time. I do lots of lithos. When I do mine I use a .0625 ballnose bit with a 10% stepover takes awhile to carve but gives good details. What bit are you using?

Tony

[pops1964]

Dave very nice job especially for your first you should be very happy. Tony on your machine and program and you say run 10% line spacing whats the number. Mine at 10 %
is .025 I've tried 10 and they dont look as good as yours until I drop my numbers. I'am just curious with different machines if theres a difference in the numbers. Jeff

[tonydude919]

When I say 10% stepover that means it's 10% of the tool in the tool data base not line spacing. I'm not at my computer at the moment so I can't show you a screen shot. Will post tomorrow morning.

Tony

[davemartin88]

Thanks for the kind words.

Here's the setup from Photocarve that I used although I realize now that the 1/4" engraving bit that I used doesn't actually have that angle? I think the angle is actually 60 degrees rather than 22.5? but guessing the point size is the more important setting? Will have to check this in the shop later to see the bits actual dimensions. I've seen several posts where users change the bit parameters to end up with the best image so maybe I just lucked out. I like the idea of a ball nose bit, seems that could end up with an even smoother transition between the lines as they are carved. The smallest ball nose bit that I have is .125 so probably would need to purchase a smaller bit.

[tonydude919]

I set my number of lines to more than 1000 lines. Just insert a number in the box and see what you come up with. This is pretty much what I use. Your not carving deep enough. I go down .12 deep.

Tony

[davemartin88]

Thanks Tony, will be trying another one soon and will try to increase the number of lines to see how it changes. I was wondering about the depth I should carve. What is the main improvement you see with carving deeper- more contrast/variation maybe? Easier to light?

Thanks again.

[tonydude919]

More light passing thru, more details show. Others cut deeper but I'm happy with mine using led lights behind them.

Tony

[HerbE]

David,
In one of the litho tutorials the procedure for calculating your cut depth is discussed. Basically using your Z0 height to cut leaving about .03" in the deepest cuts. It's easy to do edge cleanup and add some background designs and/or text around your picture if you have V-Carve Pro and import your .pvc file there. You appear to not have any reservations about trying stuff, so you will do well with these wonderful programs. Looks as if you are off to a good start.

Herb

[davemartin88]

Did another version of this litho of my mom using the suggestions from Tony. Same image as first carving, adjusted the cutting parameters until I was at just over 1000 lines. Took nearly 4 hours to carve. I noticed that I have my safe clearance a bit high so probably wasted some up and down motion and time. The amount of detail that can be seen in the dress and face is amazing to me- looking forward to trying another photo or two but will have to buy some more corian soon. Thanks to all for the suggestions and comments so far!

Here's the carving fresh off the machine.



Here's the litho using just a desk lamp for light to see how it turned out. Will need to research some techniques on a light frame for this type of carving.

[Xxray]

Looks nice Dave, I agree the details in some of these are amazing, right down to individual strands of hair.

Here are a few ideas for lighting/display, I use a simple mdf box with white LED strips and remote for lighting. Well, actually not so simple, the concept is anyhow.

http://forum.vectric.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4373

http://forum.vectric.com/viewtopic.php? ... 01#p142001

[davemartin88]

Ordered some lights and power supply last night from Amazon. Will post results once I get a box together- thanks for the information Xxray!

Have to decide on the next photo to try!