How do you sand your CNC carvings?

[Jim Underwood]

How do you sand your CNC carvings?

I'm finding that there are areas that no matter how fine your stepover is, it's still very difficult to get the lines out.

I'm wondering if there's a good way to sand these things other than by hand and a lot of patience.

[Jerome Stanek]

a sanding mop

[Jim Underwood]

Have any recommendations?

[Rich Fennessey]

Here is discussion on the Camheads forum regarding this. One guy suggested using oil on the piece and recut the next morning.
camheads.org/showthread.php?t=2327&highlight=flap+sander

[Gene Crain]

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3...beRJ5GMFSMV0gl

[Paul Phillips]

Hi Jim,
Can you post a picture so we can understand better what you are trying to sand? If it's very intricate there's no easy way to do it other than by hand that I know of. I use mostly HDU though so it's generally easier to sand than wood, I typically use a DA sander and hand sand the rest, I prime and paint my pieces though, so that makes it easier to hide tool marks as well. I used to do carve it all by hand also, so I figure I'm way ahead of what it used to take me to do it all by hand. Sometimes I still use my hand carving chisels to help smooth things out and finish-up the final piece, that really helps.
Paul

[Jim Underwood]

Paul,

Take a look at the vanity apron I posted. That's typical of something I'd want to sand.

[Gene Crain]

on vectric forum there are some good threads about detail sanding

[Paul Phillips]

Jim, I see what you mean, that's very nice work and some very fine detail involved, wish I could help you more but maybe Gene's ideas are worth a try.
Paul

[Keith Outten]

Take a look at this link and scroll down to the very bottom of the page.

http://www.vectric.com/media/files/c...t_Tutorial.pdf

3M Radial Bristle Discs from
(stack 3 discs at a time on your rotary tool mandrel)
80-grit: part # 4494A19
220-grit: part # 4494A18
www.mcmaster.com

[Mike Heidrick]

If you have the time - run the job a second time. You would be surprised at the vcarve results.

[JERRYWAYNE MILLER]

The best thing I found to eliminate the "fuzzies" is sandblasting with a light medium(baking soda,walnut shells,etc.).

[Jim Underwood]

I finally resorted to using some sticky backed sandpaper folded over on itself, cutting it into 3/4" squares, poking a small hole in it for my Dremel tool's mandrel, and sanding the ridges and fuzzies out of the vertical walls with that. It worked fairly well, but I think I'm going to get some of the sanding mops or the 3M radial bristle things, and perhaps a Foredom tool.
,
In addition to the cusp lines from the raster cut, there are the "fuzzies" spoken of above. The worst problems, however, are the ridges left in curved vertical walls because of the stepover. Unless you have a really small bit and really small stepover, I'm not sure how you would eliminate these.

[Mike Heidrick]

Also make sure your machine is trammed and the bed is surfaced.

[Gene Crain]

artcam has a rest machining feature which assigns vectors to the relief and using a profile toolpath offset inwards helps remove some of the cusp lines