Since none of the Vectric software products are available for Mac users, carving with v bits was no go. Sure I could use Bootcamp or Parallels, but I would feel ashamed running Windows on my Mac and I dont’ want to spend the money for Windows and VCarve. I just finished setting up an inlay design in Easel Pro and it looks like my carving time for a will drop from 12h 28m to 1h 46m. That right there is worth the price of admission. Also, I can see in a high-resolution preview of the finished carve, which allows me to compare the results between different angle bits. Nice. I know VCarve Pro and Desktop have a lot of additional features, but I HATE paying for bells and whistles I’ll never use. Plus, I can’t help but think some of those capabilities will eventually find their way into Easel Pro. Now I just have to wait for my engraving bits to get here so I can see if Easel Pro is going to live up to its promise. I will report back.
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with, as always!
hey Chris that is very interesting post to me
would you mind sharing on how exactly it cut your time down verse Easel free I would love to hear your input on your time shavings and a comparison between the two
thanks a bunch
Using a 1/32" upcut bit, a 20 ipm feedrate and a DOC of .01" (that’s as fast as I can run without breaking the bit) it was going to take me 12h 28m. In comparison, a 30° engraving bit with the recommended cut settings of 32 ipm feedrate and a DOC of .04" reduced the carve time to 1h 46m. I haven’t done the carve yet, but as soon as my bit arrives, I’ll do the cut and report back.
okay to your points there
wouldnt it be just as fast or faster if you roughed out your part with a larger endmill first and then went back with the smaller tool to clean up the detail?
If I rough with a 1/8" bit (80 ipm, .04" DOC) and finish with a 1/32" bit (30 ipm, .015" DOC) it would take 2h 41m. So almost an hour longer.
would you mind sharing the file?
I can’t share the project because the design is for a customer. I will say that it is 10.5" wide, 12" tall and will be cut .1" deep into a 14" X 20" x .25" walnut board. The art is a tribal reptile design. BTW, when I stated the roughing pass I upped the feedrate to 80ipm which works fine for me. However, I went with the recommended cut settings for the finishing bit and those speeds I know will break the bit. If I go with speeds that I know will work (20ipm, .01 DOC), it would take 5h 24m to cut.
yeah I see what you mean I just know that there are faster ways to carve it but without seeing the file I can’t tell
no worries on that I completely understand if its your customers design I would not share it
so without that I really cant say anything further
Wait, did you do a prismatic inlay? B/c flat inlays are available in the Easel free version. Or did you mean you finished setting up a v-carved design?
(I’m with you otherwise, I have a Mac and am stoked for vcarving.)
I created an original design in Adobe Illustrator and brought it into Easel. Originally I had planned to do it as a flat, 2D carve, but when I realized Easel Pro allows for v-bit carving, I decided to go that route since it cut the carve time dramatically.
Ah, okay. My understanding is that what you are talking about is just a v-carved design.
V-carve inlay is different, and I really, really hope Easel is updated to include the inlay process in the video below. (Please correct me if I’m wrong and this is what you did.)
That is exactly what I did. I created two .svg files, one is set up to be carved into the wood and the other is a mirror of the first and is to be carved out of the wood.
Huh. I tried to do that as well using Easel Pro and it didn’t work… do you have any resource on how to do that? I don’t have Adobe Illustrator. I usually use Inkscape.
I vcarved my file and then inverted the cut and carved around it, but the reverse didn’t come to a true point…
You are exactly right. It didn’t work for me either. I thought if I offset the outline I could get it to work, but it doesn’t. For my current project, I plan to cut the inlay with a 30° v bit, fill with color tinted paste and sand level.
Did you try the inlay app?
No, because someone mentioned it wasn’t updated for prismatic inlay via vcarving like in that Fengrave video. Correct me if I’m wrong?
Ex. I used the inlay app, set the bit size as small as it would go, generated the pieces, created the dark square, mirrored the inserting piece… but I can’t figure out the major for making the text of the inserting piece come to a point AND have the space around it be carved out AND create a gap an additional gap so I can insert that piece into the vcarved piece to be glued and then sawn.
I’ll check with the team next week. I don’t think I understand but I saw some inlays people did around the office.
F-Engrave and Fusion360 will do prismatic/v-carve inlay if you are determined to only use a Mac.
F-engrave is horrendous to try to use on a Mac. Trust I have spent hours and hours attempting to get it to work the same as on a Windows machine. (I really, really don’t want to buy another computer for this at this point as a hobbyist.)
Any tutorials on prismatic for Fusion? I haven’t found a good one yet.