V Carve Inlay issue

[ElevationCreations]

The opposing angles will mate without gap, however if you set up the tool for 60 degrees, and the actual angle is 59.4 degrees, you will have a gap and/and misfit between the male and female. If you adjust your tool settings to the measured 59.4 degrees, the SW will create toolpaths for the variance in the tool.

[Holzarbeiter]

Re: "Regarding the V-Bit Angles, each manufacturer can have variances, the correct angle is critical on V-Inlays as any error will double once you place the male inlay in the female pocket."

I'm not sure that I follow that logic. If a 60 degree V-bit is used to make the female engraving for a Zank inlay project, and the same V-bit is used to carve the male (mirror image) piece, the slopes of the walls of the female engraving will exactly match the corresponding slopes in the male piece. So, if your V-bit is actually 52 degrees instead of 60, but you are careful to use the same bit for both parts of your project, the slope of the V-shaped grooves in the female engraving will still match up with the corresponding edge-angles of your male workpiece because the female and male pieces are mirror images of one another.

Am I missing something?

I was thinking the same thing........

[FixitMike]

Re: "Regarding the V-Bit Angles, each manufacturer can have variances, the correct angle is critical on V-Inlays as any error will double once you place the male inlay in the female pocket."

I'm not sure that I follow that logic. If a 60 degree V-bit is used to make the female engraving for a Zank inlay project, and the same V-bit is used to carve the male (mirror image) piece, the slopes of the walls of the female engraving will exactly match the corresponding slopes in the male piece. So, if your V-bit is actually 52 degrees instead of 60, but you are careful to use the same bit for both parts of your project, the slope of the V-shaped grooves in the female engraving will still match up with the corresponding edge-angles of your male workpiece because the female and male pieces are mirror images of one another.

Am I missing something?

I was thinking the same thing........

When the router is cutting what will be a sharp corner, it ramps according to the angle of the bit is so the point makes the sharp corner. If the ramp angle is wrong, the mating part won't fit. A flat on the end of the bit will also cause problems, because the sharp female cuts will have flat bottoms, but the male shape will be sharp.

[laflippin]

Thanks to ElevationCreations and FixitMike for thoughtful discussion points. It still seems (just being stubborn here...) as though the typical glue gap allowances used in Zank inlay projects might offer some forgiveness for running a 59 deg bit using 60 deg specs, but Mike's discussion about areas where the bit ramps up in female carvings not being properly matched with their male counterparts does make a compelling point. One of these days I'm going to go back to making scrupulous measurements of my V-bit blade angles and try to correlate any variances with the outcome of my inlay projects.