How should I carve thin letters and signs? Whatever i design on easel , it says the bit is too large and when i try to carve it with smaller bits, I end up breaking the bit. I don’t know much about bits, plunge rate or depth and feed rate. Please see me as an immature in cnc. What kind of bits should I use or what settings should I use for getting thin fine line in the letters I carve? I have heard about the V carving bits, but can we use that in x carve and choose that in easel or what should i do? Please help!! thankyou
vbits are the best tools to use for lettering, Easel does not yet know how to control a vbit so you have a couple choices. The lest expensive is to use F-Engrave. It will do a great job and is free. F-Engrave has a few limitations and a small learning curve but should be able to do most of what you will need.
Next is Vcarve, it is a full design solution. If you plan to make lots of signs then vcarve is the program you will want to use. the desktop version is about $350, so its not cheap but it is very very good. I would suggest downloading the free trial version to see how it works.
Lastly you can just try lying to Easel and use a 30 or 60 degree vbit and tell Easel you are using a .03 diameter bit. If you use a shallow cut depth it will work ok. And you will never break a vbit.
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I’ve been carving plaques and signs for over a year. Although I like F-Engrave, mixing text and graphics is a challenge. I’ve had luck with Easel using 1/8" for clearing and 1/32" for finishing. Downcut bits work well for the lettering and requiring less sanding at the end.
I agree with Allen’s comments but, if you prefer to use Easel, you can get good results.