How do you sand your CNC carvings?

[Bruce Page]

Beautiful work Bruce! Where did you find the dragon model?

[Jim Underwood]

Thanks Bruce!
When are we having a CW getogether at your place? Hands on experience is the best way to learn! ;-)

[Bruce Kinney]

Good morning Folks,

It's nice to be retired and answer questions promptly on a Monday morning rather than have to put this off until the following weekend. Finally after 45 years.

Bruce, thanks for your question. The Dragon with castle (I like to think of him/her as Nessie in Scotland) is from the VectorClip3D patterns subscription service. I use thousands of their designs. Happy to advise more offline.

Jim we'll be getting together soon I hope as the North GA CarveWright User Group. I agree that the best way for all of us to learn is from each other and that is how I got into CNC work in the first place after a lifetime of hand carving, computer graphics and carpentry in general. Still trying to round up all the user names and emails in our area so we don't exclude anyone who might like to participate. More to follow.

One more tool I neglected to mention would be small diamond coated burrs chucked in a Dremmel tool. The burrs from Harbor Freight and other sources come as a set of about 10 with sharp and curved cones, cylinders, ball tips etc at about 1/8" dia to max 1/4" tips. I bought two sets large and small for about $10 each. Used with a light touch they are great for the equivalent of 80 grit sanding at high speed in a very controlled area where needed.

Some fuzz areas I have found are much easier to remove after you have sanded and stained the piece. Let it dry, light sand and then apply first coat of your chosen finish. Then when you sand that coat with a mop the fuzzies are stiffened and will be knocked off where they just bent or layed over before.

Hope that adds something to the ideas bucket for everyone.

Fair winds,

Capt Bruce

[Bruce Page]

Bruce, thanks for the info. I will try to locate the model, my granddaughter will love it!

[Roy Harding]

What I find works well for me on the Shopbot is to do the finishing tool path twice. I use a 1/16" inch tapered ball end, with a 7% step over (for you Carvewright users out there - this is the Carvewright "carving bit" - I still get them from CW Parts, as I did when I was running a CW). The raster pattern follows the Y axis ("up and down") on the first pass, and the X axis ("side to side") on the second pass. If some quick sanding is still required after that - I use a sanding mop in my drill press.

This DOES take time - but as someone above mentioned, machine time and router bits are cheap compared to MY time spent on sanding. I also use the Vector Art 3D patterns - there are other suppliers out there as well.

Some (mostly of keepsake boxes - I REALLY need to hire a kid to get that site organized with all my photos) of my work can be seen here.

[Bruce Kinney]

Beautiful work Roy and I really envy your wide drum/belt sander. Not to go off topic but are your box lids with contrasting wood carvings on top made separately or carved as two glued up layers carved all at once.

[Roy Harding]

Beautiful work Roy and I really envy your wide drum/belt sander. Not to go off topic but are your box lids with contrasting wood carvings on top made separately or carved as two glued up layers carved all at once.

The inlays are cut separately and glued into pockets on the lids (or chest fronts). Using Partsworks (a subset of Aspire which came with the Shopbot) makes it REALLY easy to cut the pockets perfectly.

[Bruce Kinney]

Thanks Roy, It's interesting to see how people approach each project. Same should work on the CW using a pattern outline copied and placed on the back board as a carve area with minimal depth. Time for an experiment with some cedar and elm for contrast.

[Roy Harding]

Thanks Roy, It's interesting to see how people approach each project. Same should work on the CW using a pattern outline copied and placed on the back board as a carve area with minimal depth. Time for an experiment with some cedar and elm for contrast.

Yup - it'll work. I used to do the same thing on my CW.

[Jim Underwood]

I'm not seeing any of Roy's work on this thread... What were you commenting on, Bruce?

[Roy Harding]

I'm not seeing any of Roy's work on this thread... What were you commenting on, Bruce?

He's looking at photos on the link I provided earlier (it's not always easy to see links). The link is here. (Click on the blue text)

[Ralph Y Thorne]

Beautiful work Bruce. Glad to see you sailed up the river to Sawmill Creek.

Ralph

[Bruce Kinney]

Good morning and thank you for the welcome aboard Ralph. Wanted to break out and bit and see what I was missing since so many people speak well of the community here at Sawmill Creek. So the old Riverboat Capt finds himself here up the Creek without the proverbial paddle and causing confusion for Jim. Panic, confusion, disorder . . . my work here is done!

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Hey Jim,
A few thoughts to consider:
1 sharp bits
2-Species
3- direction of grain to toolpath
4-how solid is your material fixtured to your table
5- moisture
6_speed of feed aka G01
7-quality of 3D drawing/model zoom in real close in Artcam to see how smooth the surface is
8- are you doing an X or Y tool-path or a spiral

The above does not imply any of the items are wrong just places to look to see if there is room for improvement.

Sometimes you can run a 2nd finish path with a slightly larger or smaller offset so the tool path will hit different areas and can possibly be run at a MUCH higher speed.

Are you doing one offs or wanting to do production runs?

let me know if anything above helps or works.

thanks and ...

[Jim Underwood]

Good things to consider!

I'd never thought of moisture content since I've always cut kiln dried wood. I know wet wood cuts easier from my woodturning though! Love to make streamers with a gouge!

As for sharp bits, I'm always using that Onsrud three flute 1/8" tapered ballnose that you can only get from Beckwith Décor. I run that in a raster cut with a little less than 10% stepover (.010") with about 200IPM feed and plunge rate. I'm only doing one off stuff most of the time, but I still like to get done as soon as possible, because it's hard for me to justify cost to Joe Homeowner. Of course when you figure in sanding time, you'd be better off running a 1/16" bit after anyway. I think I'll try running a second pass with the 1/16" bit running at .006" stepover and just run the speed way up there.

I also never thought of the part moving on the table while carving. If you don't have rigidity when machining, you don't have nuttin. Of course a 25 HP Kaeser vacuum pump helps relieve any anxiety on that score...