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Thread: World Map

  1. #1
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    World Map

    I just finished this last night. Total machining time was about 60 hours for the roughing, rough finish pass, and final finish pass on my CNC. The little Makita router ran like a champ, never even got warm after the roughing passes were done. Anyway, here it is after finishing with Danish Oil. I did no sanding; this is how it came off the CNC. The wood is Sapele and the size is 14 x 26"



    There is more detail that could be gotten by running another finishing pass with a smaller diameter tapered ballnose endmill, but I'm not going to do that for fear of creating sharp contour changes that give an unfinished look, which is what happened the first time I ran this. That means some of the lettering isn't as clear as it could be, which I would like to be able to mill separately, but I don't know how to parse that out of the STL file. So this is it. The level of detail is still pretty amazing, with all sorts of things going on in the background.







    I'm continually impressed with what my CNC is capable of. And before anyone says, yeah, but you're just pushing the button and the machine does everything for you, I'll point out that there is a lot of decision making and trial and error involved in selecting the right milling bits, sequence, speeds and feeds, and several other parameters that make for success or failure.

    John

    John

  2. #2
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    That's very nice !!

  3. #3
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    John - that is pretty awesome.
    Regards,

    Kris

  4. #4
    That looks fantastic!! I've never used Sapele on the CNC but now I want to find a suitable project.
    David
    CurlyWoodShop on Etsy, David Falkner on YouTube, difalkner on Instagram

  5. #5
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    Extremely intricate. Very nice. I showed my wife, who is into lasers, etc. and her response was, "whoa". That means well done sir.
    My Dad always told me "Can't Never Could".

    SWE

  6. #6
    I would not have believed that was possible by any means other than about 30 to 50 years in a prison cell ! Extraordinary! Gonna send all
    my modeling clay ash trays to the basement !

  7. #7
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    Great job John. I haven’t cut any sapele but want to! Can you provide a link to the model?
    Please help support the Creek.


    "It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone."
    Andy Rooney



  8. #8
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    That's a beautiful end result John. Sapele works pretty much the same as true mahogany in my experience. I've cut both on my CNC with outstanding results. They maintain detail nicely. There is interlocking grain, but the CNC doesn't care so much, especially with detail carving like that.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bruce Page View Post
    Great job John. I haven’t cut any sapele but want to! Can you provide a link to the model?
    Thanks for the kind comments, all. Bruce, here's a link to the Etsy vendor I bought the file from. https://www.etsy.com/listing/1016850...-3&pro=1&sts=1

    I used a 1/4" ballnose end mill for the clearing pass, then a 1/8" ballnose end mill for the rough finishing cut, and a 1.5 mm ballnose end mill for the finishing pass. There is more detail to be gotten if you can figure out how to get it w/o making it look ugly, as it did for me when I first tried it with a 0.5 mm ballnose end mill for the finishing pass.

    As Jim said, Sapele machines beautifully on the CNC. Honestly, I did no sanding on it. What you see is how it came off the machine. Good luck.

    John

  10. #10
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    Thanks for the link. How much step over did you use?
    Please help support the Creek.


    "It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone."
    Andy Rooney



  11. #11
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    It is pretty spectacular John. I haven’t a clue what the programming side entails.
    My first thought how did you keep the piece from warping as wood was removed?
    Prayer ,Luck, sorcery ?
    It just seems impossible but there it is.
    Aj

  12. #12
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    Whoa-that’s next level!
    "You can observe a lot just by watching."
    --Yogi Berra

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bruce Page View Post
    Thanks for the link. How much step over did you use?
    I used a 1/4" BN EM with 40% stepover for the roughing cut. Then I used a 1/8" tapered ballnose endmill for the clearing finishing pass at 6% stepover, followed by a 1.5 mm tapered BN EM with 8% stepover for the finial finishing pass. I'm using VCarve Pro. The key one in my opinion was with the 1/8" tapered BN EM, because it's the one that does the finishing work on the surface of the hemispheres and deep flat areas. Having said that, a guy on the CNC forum I participate on said hogwash, forget the two step approach and just run the 1.5 mm bit with 8% stepover on a 45 deg raster cut. And he even said at 300 ipm. I don't know if it would look as good, but the simulation does look good, and takes the machining time down from over 48 hours for the two-step finishing approach to around 13 hours. I don't plan to make another one of these but when I do something similar I definitely will try a test piece to see how his recommendations work.

    John

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Andrew Hughes View Post
    It is pretty spectacular John. I haven’t a clue what the programming side entails.
    My first thought how did you keep the piece from warping as wood was removed?
    Prayer ,Luck, sorcery ?
    It just seems impossible but there it is.
    Thanks Andrew. I bought my CNC to do furniture and cabinet work, but it's fun to see what other things are possible on the art side of computerized woodworking. I bought the STL file from a person on Etsy, so they did the hard work. All I had to do was figure out a combination of toolpaths to carve it out of a thick piece of wood. Vectric's tutorials are top notch IMO, and I followed their recommendations for the most part. I had already done a few other 2.5D carvings, so I knew the approach to use, or should I say, one approach. There's no right or wrong, only what works for you. I probably spent 2 or 3 hours fooling around with various combinations of toolpaths that looked good on the simulation but was "only" 60 hours of machine time. Later, some folks have told me that with a different approach, using fewer endmills, I could do it much faster. I've looked at that idea on the simulation and if it worked it would take the total machine time down to about 20 hours. Pretty huge.

    Ha, funny you should mention warping. It did exactly that the first time I ran it. After the roughing was done, I noticed on the first finishing pass that the bit was cutting deeper in some areas than others. Hmm. Then I saw that the workpiece had bowed up on the ends. Well, that explained that. What to do? I used washer head screws all around the perimeter to flatten the workpiece back down to the spoilboard. Then I reran the entire process with the toolpaths set to eliminate the deepest overcut, about 0.080". And what you see is what I got. The workpiece is still bowed a little, but it's only going to hang on the wall so I'm fine with that. It would be interesting to see if a vacuum table would have held the workpiece flat.

    John

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by John TenEyck View Post
    Thanks Andrew. I bought my CNC to do furniture and cabinet work, but it's fun to see what other things are possible on the art side of computerized woodworking. I bought the STL file from a person on Etsy, so they did the hard work. All I had to do was figure out a combination of toolpaths to carve it out of a thick piece of wood. Vectric's tutorials are top notch IMO, and I followed their recommendations for the most part. I had already done a few other 2.5D carvings, so I knew the approach to use, or should I say, one approach. There's no right or wrong, only what works for you. I probably spent 2 or 3 hours fooling around with various combinations of toolpaths that looked good on the simulation but was "only" 60 hours of machine time. Later, some folks have told me that with a different approach, using fewer endmills, I could do it much faster. I've looked at that idea on the simulation and if it worked it would take the total machine time down to about 20 hours. Pretty huge.

    Ha, funny you should mention warping. It did exactly that the first time I ran it. After the roughing was done, I noticed on the first finishing pass that the bit was cutting deeper in some areas than others. Hmm. Then I saw that the workpiece had bowed up on the ends. Well, that explained that. What to do? I used washer head screws all around the perimeter to flatten the workpiece back down to the spoilboard. Then I reran the entire process with the toolpaths set to eliminate the deepest overcut, about 0.080". And what you see is what I got. The workpiece is still bowed a little, but it's only going to hang on the wall so I'm fine with that. It would be interesting to see if a vacuum table would have held the workpiece flat.

    John
    John - just a thought. Is there enough thickness to make some relief cuts on the back? Would that help with the warping long-term?
    Regards,

    Kris

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