How would you approach this design on the XCarve

Projects
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Hey guys,

I have a project/sign i’m trying to do, and there are some pretty detailed pieces on it. How would you approach it. The way I would normally approach it, is having a Chamfer bit that did the detailed engraving, or a V-Bit… Start out deep, and get shallower as the point progresses, and the rest would be a 1/8" flat bit for the flat parts. Is there any way to do this with the current software, or do I need to get a different software package. Right now i’m trying to figure it out in Fusion360, but the software is still pretty new on the CAM side, and it’s hard to get started with it, but it looks pretty damn versatile.

Here’s a picture of one of the carves that need to occur. Keep in mind, the wood looking piece is what needs to be carved out.

Thanks for the discussion on this.

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You may loose a little of the detail, but the first approach I would take is to just do a roughing and detail carve in Easel. If you want to take that route then you can request access to that feature here:
Two stage cuts - #412 by Rcannon95 - Easel - Inventables Community Forum

It depends on how large this is, but it might mean cutting with a 1/8" bit and then a 1/16" or 1/32" bit for the detail. Either way, it is probably the route I would try first and see if it is what you are looking for. Then, if you don’t get the detail you are wanting, you can move to a V-Bit solution where you can carve with one of Vectric’s products or use F-Engrave. Bothe are reverenced elsewhere on the forum, so a quick search will get you the information you need.

For me personally… if I where doing it and felt that I couldn’t get the detail needed without the V-Bit route, I would drop it into Aspire and do a 2 stage cut with a 1/4" roughing bit and a 90 degree V-bit for the details.

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Thanks @sketch42, I threw my name in the hat, hopefully they’ll add me to the group. I think that having a rough and a detail cut is the way to go, but I’ll track down something from vectric and see if I can get it to work that way too… maybe pull down f-Engrave. I’m new to the software side of it, so it will give me something to do over the next few days that I have off.

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Be aware of the depth limitations of your bits for the detail cuts. If you’re trying to cut something that’s more than 1/2" thick you probably won’t be able to do it this way. the 1/16 and 1/32" bits have very shallow cutting depth.