This was more of an experiment in masking (pardon the pun) than anything else.
The material is white melamine covered MDF. I covered the panel with MacTac vinyl, then cut the pattern with the combination of a 1/8" ball nose and a 90° V bit. The ball nose was to take the wider cuts down to 1/8" deep and the V bit to do the narrower cuts and all the edges. It’s a bit hard to see that it is 1/8" deep max because of the black paint and my bad photography.
After the cut, I sprayed with a black primer that I had kicking around, then removed the MacTac. I was happy with how crisp the lines ended up. The MacTac cut cleanly with both bits, leaving a nice sharp edge for the paint.
Thanks, Robby. There’s not much to it. I really did it to test out the concept of masking. I wasn’t sure if the mactac would cut clean enough to be a good “stencil”.
Grant, these are cool. I was under the impression that unless you used a down-cutting mill the edges of the mask would tear out. This MacTac must be good stuff. I tried regular shelf paper but it’s not sticky enough and the edges peel. Gonna have to try MacTAc.
@BillKorn Bill: I really didn’t know what would happen. I got this stuff at Home Depot many moons ago, and thought I would give it a try. I cleaned the melamine with alcohol and used a J roller to really press the film down. I did another project for a buddy. The surface was lacquer and I could not get a good stick until I scuffed it with 320 paper. On that one, I was using a 1/16" ball nose mill.
I’ve failed with a couple where the grooves were just too close together. It’s a bit hit and miss, so far.
On this one, I did the V bit path first. I guess, maybe, the angled shearing cut helped.
Post pics of your results, please, and tell us how you did it. I’m sure that there are several ways to skin this cat.
Grant, if you still have some of the laminated board I have a fun program for you to try - Halftoner v1.7. https://jasondorie.com/page_cnc.html
You load a graphic - high contrast, low detail is best - and it generates the gcode for the graphic in dots, lines, squares, or circles. It’s one of those you learn-as-you-try programs, but I’ve gotten some pretty cool results. With a 90 deg V-bit it’s very cool to watch - A lot of ups and downs!
The author also has a program called Reactor, which generates gcode for a reaction/diffusion pattern of a graphic. Also cool, but huge gcode files.
