3D carving for Father's Day
 

I put this together for my Dad. It turned out pretty good for being direct drive on the motors. It's about 12" x 27". Can't wait to get gear reduction someday.

Looks great !

Mike,
Very Impressive. Could you give us some detail on what program you used, where the model came from and wood, cut time etc for this?

I used a relief from Vectorart 3d, Did the tool paths in Vectorart 3d machinist. Imported into Vcarve pro, drew offset and some radius'. Used 1/2" roughing endmill, 1/8" round nose for finishing. 14% stepover ( 10% would have taken 1.5-2 hours longer) Cut time was around 3 hours +/-. Oak 1x12, 24 inches long.

I'm finally getting the hang of some of the software from Vectric. Someday I would like to upgrade to Aspire. Right now it's not within my buget.

Brilliant!

Very good! Amazing detail.

Mike,

Very nice.

With my limited experience cutting 3D, trying using a 1/4 Ball nose or round nose between the end mill and the final 1/8 round nose. It may speed things up because it will help remove some of the large pieces but it does take a lot of time for the 1/8 bit.

The guys at Vectric make some nice software for the price you pay. I really like the features that Aspire has.

Nils,
In 3d machinist, it only has option for rough and finish. If I put another toolpath for 1/4", I don't think the finish will calulate things any faster. I am going to try something with the 1/4" bit, just to see how much detail is lost.

Mike,

Yes it is the same with Aspire. What I did with one piece was I did a rough cut with 1/4 end mill and 1/4 ball nose. I then did a smooth cut with 1/8 ball nose bit. It took about an hour to cut with the 1/8 ball nose.

The first picture is after the 1/4 end mill and the second is after both of the ball nose bits. When I was done, I did not have to sand the material and it was smooth as you could want.