My first 3d carve didn’t turn out well. Any idea what I did wrong? I used V carve 12.5 on Altmill 4x4.
What kind of cutter did you use for the fine pass? Did you do a fine pass? You need to use a tapered ball endmill with a very fine point if you want detail. Also, what is the diameter of the carve.
It also depends on how you got the file - did you generate it yourself? Maybe from a picture (those don’t turn out well)
Could be any combination of the above - hard to say without more details.
I used a 1/8” ball nose. The carve is 3” diameter and I bought the file off Etsy from a seller with a 4.9 rating.
Hopefully other people will chime in but it sounds to me that a 1/8 ballnose endmill is way too large a tool for the kind of detail you are expecting. I would use a 1/32 tapered ball nose endmill.
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I would agree that the 1/8” was too large for a 3” diameter carve.
If you had the wood to spare, or even some particle board, I would update your VCarve to a 6” or larger stock for that size bit.
Or as Jens suggested, try a 1/32” bit to get the detail on a 3” diameter.
I have purchased a few designs off Etsy as well and so far, they have all turned out well.
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I’ve taken to using an R0.5mm tapered ball nose for any finishing pass when there is a lot of fine detail.
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Now that I have the right bits
for the final pass, I tried loading it again and when I tried to load the 1/8 bit for the rough pass, I got this message. What does this mean?
Hmm, double check the tool selection for the roughing pass. I typically use an downcut for my roughing passes (as opposed to a ballnose). Also, you could try a 1/4” if you have one.
Thank you, I’ll try tomorrow.