martin54 wrote:There are people on the forum who use that method & those that use a double sided tape, I have a range of different hold down methods & use what ever method I feel is most suitable for the job I am doing.
If you are not surfacing the underside of the board then this method may not be suitable, the tape/superglue combination is pretty thin so you could end up with a lot of ereas with absolutely no hold down.
Also, there are no areas are NO black areas where there hasn't been any carving done at all. Everything with black has been cut.
If you look at your final picture there is a very large part of it that looking at the Toolpath preview should not have been cut yet seems to be very black
The area above the bike according to the preview is not cut at all.
InkedVCarve Actual Cut_LI.jpg
No Prob whatsoever! I actually prefer someone cutting through the chase and telling it like it is. Saves a lot of time and potential missunderstanding!!!!
No it doesn't help when pictures are from different files
I still think finishing could be a big part of the problem but there may be something else contributing that I don't think has been mentioned yet, those vectors are very close together which means that a lot of it is very thin, it is possible that parts have been broken as it machines, to help reduce that then a coat of sealer before the carve helps as Ted has mentioned, cut it as he has also said so it is absorbed deeper into the material. Don't know what feed rate you have used but also slowing the feed rate can help. A 30 degree bit should certainly also help, I take it you have used a v bit & not an engraving bit entered as a v bit
martin54 wrote:No it doesn't help when pictures are from different files
I still think finishing could be a big part of the problem but there may be something else contributing that I don't think has been mentioned yet, those vectors are very close together which means that a lot of it is very thin, it is possible that parts have been broken as it machines, to help reduce that then a coat of sealer before the carve helps as Ted has mentioned, cut it as he has also said so it is absorbed deeper into the material. Don't know what feed rate you have used but also slowing the feed rate can help. A 30 degree bit should certainly also help, I take it you have used a v bit & not an engraving bit entered as a v bit
Hey Martin. Yes, I use an actual VBit. 60 degree x 1/2". I'm hoping that a 30 degree VBit will help.
There are actual engraving bits! Though some of them are a bit prone to breakage unless used with extreme care. The good news is that you can experiment with them because there are cheap ones sold on eBay for less than $10 for a package of 10 in a variety of sizes. You will need a 1/8 collet though.
There are also tapered ball noses that are tiny, like .25mm tip radius. Those are pretty tough and are also really cheap.
"If you see a good fight, get in it." Dr. Vernon Johns
Getting Better. Switched to a new 30 degree VBit and as you can see, I got much better detail.
Thanks to you all for your advice and suggestions. I'm still in the process of testing the actual angles of my various VBits and I did seal the cut areas
before adding the paint. Will be trying some engraving bits next and will also slow the feed rate down a bit.
