looking for help making an irregular bowl toolpath

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devildoc87
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looking for help making an irregular bowl toolpath

Post by devildoc87 »

I have a cherry stump slab that is irregularly shaped. I was able to upload a picture of it and get the outline drown to proportion using the scale to square method. You draw a know square( in my case 100mm x 100mm on the slab. Take a photo then import it into VCarve. Then make a square the same size in VCarve and scale the picture so the squares match.

The question I have is I want to make a 30 degree sloped recess that goes down from 1 inch back from the edge of the slab all the way to middle like a bowl that is 30mm deep.

I tried playing with chamfer and fluting options but cannot get it to work. Any suggestions? I have attached a picture of the slab and the VCarve layout thus far..
Attachments
20230106_144511.jpg
Bowl Paths.jpg

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mrmfwilson
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Re: looking for help making an irregular bowl toolpath

Post by mrmfwilson »

The easiest way to make a bowl is to use the Molding tool. Draw the outline in two parts and use a profile to dish out the bowl. There is a free project called Catch-All Tray that will show you the technique.
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dealguy11
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Re: looking for help making an irregular bowl toolpath

Post by dealguy11 »

Here is one way to do it using a moulding toolpath. I have cheated a little on this toolpath and it won't work on all shapes, but it does here. Normally a moulding toolpath will only cut on the outside of a closed rail, so you can't cut inwards towards the center of the bowl. You can make a shape on the inside of the bowl and cut outwards from that, but it may or may not be a nice fit to 1" from the outside on the slab when it gets to the top.

So, the cheat here is that I offset from the outside of the slab by 1", then used vector editing to cut the resulting offset vector and left a tiny space in it. It is an open, not a closed vector. The space is important so that VCarve Pro doesn't just figure out that it should have been a closed vector, which it will do otherwise.

Create a pocket toolpath for the center, then create your moulding toolpath using the open vector and the slanted profile vector on the left. Make sure the two vectors are going the right direction, and you get this result.
Attachments
Slab bowl result.jpg
slab bowl 2.zip
(1.53 MiB) Downloaded 37 times
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devildoc87
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Re: looking for help making an irregular bowl toolpath

Post by devildoc87 »

Great thanks guys I'll give it a try.

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sharkcutup
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Re: looking for help making an irregular bowl toolpath

Post by sharkcutup »

irregular bowl.png
Something like this??? Note: this is just the first side! Still need to do other side.

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sharkcutup
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Re: looking for help making an irregular bowl toolpath

Post by sharkcutup »

Here it is with both side done.
irregular bowl 2.png
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sharkcutup
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Re: looking for help making an irregular bowl toolpath

Post by sharkcutup »

Here you go Final Time - Several Views

Not Knowing the Actual Thickness of your material slab this representation was created at 1.5" thick with bowl being Approx. 1.25" deep leaving a 0.25" bottom thickness. 1" from outer slab edge start 30 degree slope to a 1.1347" depth.
irregular bowl 1.png
irregular bowl 3.png
irregular bowl 2.png
irregular bowl 4.png
irregular bowl 5.png
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devildoc87
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Re: looking for help making an irregular bowl toolpath

Post by devildoc87 »

Great Thank you !

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sharkcutup
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Re: looking for help making an irregular bowl toolpath

Post by sharkcutup »

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8mcjik9913hih ... l.crv?dl=0

I forgot to post the file, sorry!!! File was to Large to Post Here!

Warning!!! --- Change the Tooling and Toolpaths to suit your machine parameters!!!

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