Vcarving: ‘contoured’ clearance passes

[jhanna]

I do 0.25” deep vcarve inlays with 30 degree vbit and 1/4” endmill. My clearance passes are 2 identical passes at 0.125” depth resulting in a straight wall 0.25” deep.

I saw a post on Instagram where someone had “contoured” clearance passes meaning instead of a straight 0.25” wall there was a stepover at 0.125”. Like a 2D/3D carving. The result is that the vbit has less cutting to do and less resulting side load.

How do I unlock this secret potion?

I have vcarve desktop. Thanks.

Jeff

[Rcnewcomb]

Can you post a photo? I'm unclear what you are looking for.

[mtylerfl]

Can you post a photo? I'm unclear what you are looking for.

I thought it was just me! I cannot decipher the description either.

So, Jeff...help us understand please.

[Philip Lutz]

Something like this?

(pictured before the 30 degree v-bit cut)

Phil

[jhanna]

Something like this?

ContourCut.png

(pictured before the 30 degree v-bit cut)

Phil

Yes like this, which would be after the clearance passes and before the vbit cut.

Mine has a straight wall all the way up. Which means the vbit has to remove a lot of material. If you did enough small passes with the clearance tool you could basically cut the 30 degree shape without the 30 degree. Stepping over a little each pass instead of a straight walk. The guy claimed to be using ventric and didn’t do anything special in the toolpaths. He didn’t really seem to know what he was talking about so either he was playing really dumb or I’m missing some check box somewhere. Or it’s only available on vcarve pro. But I was told desktop and pro were the same except for workspace size restrictions.

[jhanna]

Ok I might have figured it out... I finally got it to do it by changing the flat area clearance from raster to offset... Why wouldn't it work with raster vs. offset?

Jeff