Relief carve a 3" block"

[William1]

Good afternoon mates,
I created this angled. headstock model to use as my relief model.
It will be cut out of a 3x4" block, where I will cut out the side profile leaving a bit extra.
My question is since I have to set the material thickness to 3" it will simply be “in space” till it reached the actual wood.
Is there a hack I am missing, which toolpath works best?

[Chucky_ott]

Not sure I understand your question so maybe others who can help don’t understand it either.

Are the neck and head stock carved separately and then glued ?
Are the neck and head stock glued together and then carved. In which case, you wood block would look like this:

[William1]

Thanks Chucky,
I cut it out of a solid 3x4 block which basically leaves what you have there.
I did try this:
I made a vector boundary, then made am Area Clearance toolpath, which I then projected onto the relief. It seems to work, I’ll do a test on some dense foam.

Maybe other guys have other ideas.

thanks,
William

[Chucky_ott]

That sketch above shows the wood stock before you start carving, not after.

If that’s the case, I don’t know how you deal with wood stock that is not the same depth throughout. I think you have to accept that you will have “air cuts” where your CAM software assumes you have wood but in reality, you don’t.

[Spamming_Eddie]

Hey William,

If I get this correct, you sorta kinda did rough shape on a bandsaw and want to carve out the profile with a 3d model, no?

For what I know about 3d model carving, you have a roughing toolpath and a finishing one. The finishing one does not look at the max dept of cut that is set for a bit, it assumes you did your roughing and carves the model. No air cutting.

You might be able to use a stirdy bowl bit to do a finish pass with a 30ish% stepover as a lets call it a rough finish and come in with your tapered or ballnose after that.

I have not tested such process for myself, just wildly theorizing here. This will need some serious testing before going for it on a real project.

Just a thought.

[gwilki]

@William1 What do you have for CAD/CAM software to generate the toolpaths?

[William1]

Hi Gwilki,
I use Plasicity for 3D design then import into Carveo Maker Plus, it allows vector projection.

[William1]

Hi Eddie,

I’ll be gluing up 3-3/4" pdf to test.
Yes I rough it out within a 16th+, the width will not be touched so I can fasten it to the table with bridges.
I would already have the topside headstock angle done.

I can either do a 3D toolpath off the relief with some air cutting. LOL Or I can do an area clearance toolpath that I then project onto the model, Both allow for roughing and finishing.

I’ll post my progress and video it too.

Thanks,
William

[William1]

Here is what it looks like after the profile cut and projected area clearance. You can see that it cuts into the sides. I made the area clearance larger to be sure it went outside the relief.