wood buttons-VCarved and fluted

[scottp55]

Martin, I've used 4 different sized Magnates(they come to an actual point) and just used That Whiteside(look like a .015" flat at tip haven't measured it).
Bought the Whiteside as ALL the Magnates lifted the grain when running With grain, and I thought it might be just the supplier,but it seems to be the nature of the beast.
I've tried all different speeds and feeds,climb and conventional,lots of pass depths, 2 toolpaths(one set to shallow passes, but left depth .015" shallow/second toolpath set for full depth 1 pass), 2 toolpaths(1 offset -.015 climb cut/second 0 offset and conventional).
The problem seems to be when running with the grain immediately after the growth ring with cherry and maple. Not usually a big deal as easily sanded out, but with buttons it affects probably 30% of the cut(2 sides opposite each other). Because I was leaving my stock .2" thick so the cutter gave it the interesting little lip, but a royal pain to sand in there clean and fast. Thinking of trying a batch at .18" thickness and eliminating the outer blade cut.
Like I said not usually a problem and have only used in 3 woods. Did do demo boards for childrens alphabet block, where I used it on a flat board to simulate the radius(.1875") of the blocks to check out different fonts/depths/raised in pocket and VCarved letters for children who are blind or disabled as well as Normals. Probably a total of 400' linear, but the cutter was cutting both sides and it was a Pain to sand in that pointed slot.
A lot of the problem is that you have to go slow enough not to break the tip in hardwood and not burn the wood at the outer edge.
What brand did you go with? Whiteside is maybe a hair better than the Magnate but miles to go yet and want to try on exotics. I DO like the profile better and hoping to the beveled style "softened" with either 3M or 220G flutter sander.

[CarveOne]

Here are three more button designs you can try. They are sized to 1-1/2" diameter. The circle vectors can be selected along with the flourishes for Vcarved cone pockets, or a second tool path can be created to allow a small (1/16" or smaller) ball nose cutter to cut a rounded pocket. See if they work ok for you. If a 1/16" cutter doesn't go deep enough, set the start depth to 0.010". The circle vectors are a little smaller than 0.0625".

These flourishes were "fattened" a little so they go a bit deeper at this scale. Maybe they'll help.

CarveOne

[scottp55]

Thanks C1!! just came in to double check if wenge,bloodwood,and lacewood were in the acetone before lacquer category-pretty sure Padauk and wenge are. Pleasant surprise:) Going to lacquer backs and shellac the backer blanks in the hopes that carpet tape adhesive will come off clean. Actually gave myself a good blister on thumb rubbing that goop off bare wood--Gets old fast
You did read that these would be sold at Fair next week and if popular Kirk will be cutting and a single mother sanding and finishing part time Right?
If so, our little group Thanks you!

[martin54]

No Idea what brand they are to be honest Scott, I buy some of my cutters from a UK company called Wealden Tool Company, never had any problems with other bits from them & Adrian has mentioned the company a couple of times when people have asked about various cutters.
The ones I bought were these:

http://www.wealdentool.com/acatalog/Onl ... d_218.html

Like I said I haven't used them yet so hoping they will be alright

[scottp55]

Martin, Looks like same geometry as my WHiteside which I like(but not for buttons:) ) If you're just putting a roundover on an edge make sure you offset the cut half diameter of the flat plus a hair or the flat will leave a little groove--good idea also to see what max depth is that gets the full radius without the side cutter cutting the top of material --You can't always trust the manufacturers specs(or your drawing of a form tool:) . The side cut can make some really interesting affects especially with fonts if you play with it or fancy up a plaque or such.
I didn't mean to put them down except in this particular instance.
You have to love wood
No way for me to do my normal oil finish in time, so lacquered backs and hoping carpet tape will stick as well, but remove easier. No spray set up so thinking a thinned brushing lacquer(retarded) and using as a dipping lacquer if I can figure out best way to hang. Thinking wire through button holes and hanging like laundry? Maybe enough time for Watco if I get my rear end in gear.

[martin54]

Thanks Scott, funny enough I had it in my head that they had a proper point rather than a small flat, don't know where that came from lol, will try that out at some point & make a note of the max depth, yer I realise you can't go by manufacturers specs all the time after reading that tooling isn't always the advertised size or angle

How do you normally clean the glue residue left by carpet tape ? If you haven't already then you want to try something like Isopropyl alcohol ( IPA), Industrial Meths (the clear stuff not the domestic coloured stuff) or lighter fluid. Tar & glue remover would work as well if you have a car care centre near you.

[scottp55]

Martin, before the 5'th I'd never used the stuff before:) Was all kinds of nervous. I lacquered the backside of a piece of maple last night hoping it would help and it came off the board clean in about a hundredth of the time--almost no residue on the board if you lift it slow and let the tape stick to itself. The 3 backer boards were a mess though and sanding and scraping left enough to throw of my thickness. Finally to a 120G sanding sponge to it soaked in solvent alcohol and it eventually balled up and rolled off-also destroyed the Norton sponge. First coat of lacquer on backing boards now-going to give it 2 as it's only Advantech OSB but should be more stable than my other in house options and the only piece of the set up that will be reused time and again and don't want to spend 1/2 an hour each time.
Backers were dimensioned by machine and within .005" of what I called out, and then the blanks are dimensioned from the spoilboard so I KNOW what the thickness is and don't have to re-Z. 30-60 seconds to swap out blanks for surfacing down to .195".
Going to try the same thing with the actual buttons next without re-Z'ing. Change blanks instead of bits, so 4 tool changes instead of 12 in this case. At my bit change time of 3 minutes it saves about half an hour. If it's good for these tight spaces, it will work on anything we make out of 1/4" stock, be it coasters,spatula,hair clip etc. and a dozen Corian backers would mean the machine up North would never stop:) Glad it's not me, but it would save 2 hrs a day-add another day a week(or more finishing) job for someone. We have other stuff he has to cut too.
Glad I get to play and then hand it of to them:)

[martin54]

Yes it's good when you can get a little production line going isn't it lol, I have a largish square that fits in the same position on my table when ever I use it, if I have a batch of the same item to do it's amazing just how much time you can save.
You want to try & remove pretty much all the glue residue before sanding as you have found out lol, if your worried about damage to the backer boards then get yourself something like a little chiseller which is basically a little plastic scrapper that won't damage the board, you need to soak the residue with alcohol & leave it a few minutes to soften before scrapping off, only part of my job I don't really enjoy is removing vinyl graphics lol, I also use a window scrapper, the type with a Stanley knife type blade but the blade is so blunt it wouldn't cut butter. Great for scrapping glue & getting under the edge of vinyl without causing any damage though.
Well the busier you get the more people you will be able to help, your doing a bit more than just playing though aren't you. Your sorting out all the bugs so everything works as it should on the other machine aren't you lol.
Sort of know what you mean though as I only work part time for health reasons & folk have said to me I'm just a big kid playing with his toys lol. I was medically discharged from the Royal Navy many years ago so the work I do just helps top up the pension I get.

[scottp55]

Yep, Basically just helping Dad start his one last company (he's 86 and in poor health-hearts almost killed him twice this year and 3 times last year---so trying to get this off the ground before he dies as he says) and got sucked into it and find I like it:) Good idea on scraper I've got one of the curved cabinet scrapers I managed to mangalate years ago and never could get it trued and burred right again, should be perfect, thanks

[scottp55]

Oh, Martin, Not so important if you have that little flat, but if it comes to a true point- there is always a teeny bit of wood stuck in that pointed groove and I had some of those bamboo skewers that you use for kebabs and tried it. Works like a charm-Just the right diameter/thickness/hardness and a package will last years and they're Cheap Also good for those "Fuzzies" in tight spots that are "almost" off. I keep a couple tucked on my bench to check and see if I need to run another pass before I take the piece off.

[scottp55]

Thought I'd be carving buttons today out of exotics---WRONG:(
Must have been brain dead when I installed the new spoilboard, as the recessed bolt pockets for the T-nut bolt heads was designed shallower for more surfacings and and allowed the bolts to bottom out on the extrusion. Idiot me never noticed except they were super tight, but spoilboard had "crept" a 1/16'th in the last month and I didn't notice till last night.
Played with bolts and washers all day, then had to surface .04" (twice the normal). THEN my area outside the cutting area was too tall and surfacing button stock on top of blank would have cut into my fences.
Used one of them new-fangled "wireless power planers" to bring the fence skirts down flush with spoilboard. Must have been something wrong with the wireless power adapter as my speed rate went from "pretty good" to "dead slow" and then kept quitting on me after 5 minutes from overheating. Had to increase my feed rate to 1 expresso an hour!
I couldn't see exactly what was going wrong as the tool handle was slightly above shoulder height and couldn't see the digital holographic readout that must be on top of it somewhere from the wheelchair. I'll have to order next wheelchair in an extra-Tall
Going to have to give the idiot who modified and cut it a severe tongue thrashing, as he should have made a recessed pocket outside the cutting area while it was rotated 90 degrees and tiled and being cut! Maybe he'll modify the file.
Must admit, that the MDF species of tree(Multi Directional Fibre?) didn't have many knots in it though!
Someone on Shopbot forum said I should have used the optional "Grandson" attachment
Oh Well, Live and Learn.

[martin54]

Your feed rate is set way to low Scott, up it to 2 or 3 cups per hour & you will literally whiz through any work you have to do. Mind you there is the increased risk of errors as your body struggles to keep up with your brain.
I've got one of those wireless planers somewhere, mine is an older model though & is almost literally a big block of wood lol
You need to design & manufacture a hydraulic or pneumatic lift for the wheel chair seat for those taller jobs, hydraulic is probably best as people might get the wrong idea when venting a pneumatic seat.

Can't wait to see how these buttons look in a range of different woods.

[scottp55]

2-3 cups of expresso and the tool leaves chattermarks, but does save wear and tear on my sanders as all I have to do is put a piece of sandpaper on the wood and put my hand on it
CarveOne, Down to my last 6 pieces of 4" width 1/4" stock, and the 1.5" size with the cutout doesn't nest very many in that width board(5 and 6" are better), and at 1.25" diameter it doesn't look as nice. Played a little with the components during my breaks and you gave me tons of ideas, but need less Z lifts for cut times as I lost a day yesterday and still need to sand and finish. Also button hole area has to be recessed about .1" as the knitters in the super high end tend to use Alpaca and Cotswald wool that is raised here in Maine by "Gentlemen" farmers. They will love your designs!
Wish I had the Aspire Celtic Weave generator as they LOVE Celtic buttons.

[CarveOne]

I could create the gcode file for you but it will need to be using the correct post processor for your CNC machine setup. At that scale you will also need some tiny ball nose cutters smaller than 1/16". Maybe.

The best solution is to sell enough buttons to finance a copy of Aspire. Then go hog wild in the button market. Oh yeah. you'll need a couple more ShopBots too. (They are made about 130 miles west of my location.)

The Celtic Weave gadget in Aspire is based on an online Javascript tool that you can try out here: https://birrell.org/andrew/knotwork/ The Aspire gadget generates a single closed vector that is used with the Extrude tool to create the stuff you have seen on my projects. It doesn't allow you to create round or oval weave patterns, but with Aspire you can create a square or rectangular weave model and then use the modeling tool that will exclude everything outside any shape vector and then use the shape vector to create a border model, then merge the weave and the border model. It all looks like it's blended together. I did a lot of that with my Celtic Weave coat rack and box projects.


CarveOne

[scottp55]

Thanks for the help CarveOne. Long day.