gSender & Carveco Maker carving 3D model on Shapeoko SO3

The video demonstrates a 3D carve in American Maple. The model is 179 x 175 x 23mm. It was cut using two tools that were measured with a tool length measuring device (Carbide 3D BitSetter) and utilising a couple of macros written by Neil Ferreri.

The control software is new to me. It is gSender which was provided by Sienci Labs and it is excellent software. It includes excellent visualisation and fine grained control of the spindle movements. It also has an outstanding feature for starting from any line number where the machine had to be stopped for any reason.

My cutters were carbide steel provided by Rennie Tools (SK1 3JN) in Stockport UK. I used a straight sided 2 flute cutter of 6.35mm for roughing. The roughing was carried out at stepdown of 1mm and a stepover of 1.905. The trim router is by Makita and it was run on number 1 which equates to a no load speed of 10,000 RPM.

The finishing cut was completed with a three flute ball-ended carbide cutter that was .25mm in radius and the shaft was angled at 4.6 degrees. It was used with a step down of .5mm and a stepover of 0.15mm. This cutter was also run at 10,000 RPM. Both cutters were run at a feed rate of 765mm per minute and a plunge rate of 250mm per minute.

Both tool changes were handled by Neil Ferreri's excellent macros (git hub will have them). An initial measurement was taken after the Z height was found by touching off the stock with the first tool. The initial tool macro was run and BitSetter (Carbide 3D's tool length measuring device) determined the length of the roughing tool. The finishing tool change was handled by changing the tool after the roughing was completed and then using the follow up tool change macro to measure the tool length.

The results demonstrate that this macro system worked really well. The roughing toolpath was set at offset rather than describing a raster pattern. This permits much better edges to the model and because these edges were complex, I decided to use the offset roughing toolpath.

The finishing toolpath was a spiral pattern and it was also enclosed in a box so that the cutter would not crash into clamps or vices. The finished carving did not require any sanding because of the spiral toolpath and fine end of the ball-ended cutter. The wood was finished with a creme of walnut oil (for a very slight colour change to the ultra white wood of American Maple) and beeswax. The finish is completely non-toxic to pets or children and the finished article smells nice while being protected to some extent.

Видео gSender & Carveco Maker carving 3D model on Shapeoko SO3 канала pixelmangler