Designing / Cutting different Depths on same piece

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Hello everyone. I have had my maslow a little bit and have cut a few items out. Just simple outline designs. I use easel so far. My question is how do i design or input for different depths in a single piece.

Like the Wrigley field sign on here. Looking to cut down in to the wood for each letter not all the way through and cut all the way through on the outlined path. Hopefully that makes sense. LOL

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The depth of cut is set in your cam software to my best understanding. In makercam pocket operations it has a field for “target depth”. I set that to a depth less than the thickness of the material that is also within the limits of the bit diameter I am using ie: .0625 for a .125 diameter bit with equal step downs to my target depth. Example - 1/8 bit diameter = .125, target depth of 3/8 inch in 1/2 inch (or thicker) material = .375, results in 6 passes at .0625 cut depth with a stepover % of 50 or 60, a smaller stepover percentage should result in a smoother bottom of the cut with higher percentage stepover removing more material faster. Also in regards to stepover percentages if you go with a lower number you may be able to go deeper on each pass but remember that the first cut of each pass is always a full width cut so be careful not to overload your bit by too much.
to cut out the finished sign just set the profile operation to the depth you are comfortable with for cutting it out (.8 or so for 3/4 inch material, .55 for 1/2 inch material) remembering to set tabs to keep the project secure.

example of my workflow in makercam (if anyone has improvements to this, please comment as I am just a beginner also)

  1. do drill operations
  2. do pocket operations (and/or follow line operations)
  3. do profile operations with tabs if cutting full depth of operation (using multiple passes to reach target depth)

Now I do push the depth of cut on some projects trying to find the optimal depth for the bit that I am using with out having any burning (or breaking of bit, has not happened yet, knock on maslow frame, I mean wood).

Now I did budget about $100 worth of material to basically waste trying different settings and work flows to learn how the Maslow and software works.

Hope this gets you started.

Thanks
Jim

1 Like
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Thank you sir. I appreciate the help. Ill look in to makercam.

4

You can also take a look here:
http://www.scorchworks.com/Fengrave/fengrave.html