mistermikev Posted January 21, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2021 one thought... if he does choose a burst headstock I could engrave the letters and they would contrast with natural wood... that'd be pretty cool. tbh I'm not all that thrilled with the burst as the logo doesn't really pop like it did on the natural... but if he likes it that'd be an option. if nat could engrave the letters a bit deeper and fill them with turquoise dust and epoxy... not sure how crisp the edges would be... prob have to seal the engrave before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted January 21, 2021 Report Share Posted January 21, 2021 I like two and four.....big surprise, I'm sure. SR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted January 21, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2021 44 minutes ago, ScottR said: I like two and four.....big surprise, I'm sure. SR funny, idk if I told you but he had asked about staining the headstock before and I told him I thought the logo would disappear in it so we didn't pursue but when you mentioned it before I figured "well, the majority does seem to like it -so I must be wrong". TBH I don't care for it... seems a bit much and the logo doesn't stand out as featured... but he chose number 4, and this is about him, not me so... #4 it is! (again, I must assume I'm wrong here. at a wine tasting once I was told that my pallet isn't very sophisticated so I'll assume the sm applies here!) I think I will try to stain the entire 'ball' of the headstock blue as that blue will stick out in the little voids in the logo so perhaps it will pop more. Will also try to maybe cut the logo pocket a hair large and fill with black epoxy so that it pops a bit more. he didn't say a word about the ribbon so... I'm gonna assume it's out. very much appreciate everyone's feedback. I def value your contributions to this build and think we've improved it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted January 21, 2021 Report Share Posted January 21, 2021 21 minutes ago, mistermikev said: (again, I must assume I'm wrong here. at a wine tasting once I was told that my pallet isn't very sophisticated so I'll assume the sm applies here!) If we all liked the same thing, it would be a mighty boring world. SR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
komodo Posted January 21, 2021 Report Share Posted January 21, 2021 I vote for #1 but with the 12th fret inlay. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted January 21, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2021 1 minute ago, ScottR said: If we all liked the same thing, it would be a mighty boring world. SR true. top, color... all so subjective. also, may have design fatigue from looking at it soo long! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted January 21, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2021 1 minute ago, komodo said: I vote for #1 but with the 12th fret inlay. finally... someone who's on MY side! I like that one the best too, and I really like the idea of the ribbon inlay... perhaps I'm biased because I just want to get more experience doing fancy inlays. Hmm... what about a giant octopus inlay spanning the entire fretboard in turquois (totally NOT going to suggest that to kevin cause I'm pretty sure I don't have it in me!!) thank you again for the reply/input!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
komodo Posted January 21, 2021 Report Share Posted January 21, 2021 6 minutes ago, mistermikev said: Hmm... what about a giant octopus inlay spanning the entire fretboard in turquois (totally NOT going to suggest that to kevin cause I'm pretty sure I don't have it in me!!) I endorse this idea, and yes you do have it in you! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted January 21, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2021 35 minutes ago, komodo said: I endorse this idea, and yes you do have it in you! well I appreciate the vote of confidence and in all truth I would make the cnc do it... but it might not like me very much after!! thank you again for the input!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted January 26, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2021 well now... an hour of work on the dremel+diamond wheel and we're almost there. Just have to wait for the diamond jeweler's saw blade to get her the rest of the way. stuff is really beautiful. picture hardly does it justice. def want to wear the respirator with this stuff... just a plume of smoke coming off it while I was grinding. very fine dust. not sure what bit I might use to plane it down... probably going to need something specialty. Stuff would likely make short work of any regular bit. made a test fretboard... had to iron out some bugs. 9.5 to 16 compound radius toolpath kept getting too close to the nylon bolts and sending them flying... so had to resupply on those today. unfortunately the fret slot bits I have are not great... took about 3 hours to mill those 5 slots so just stopped her! slots follow the radius beautifully so that worked out well (thanks for the tip @MiKro!!). could not get the speed over 3in/min without breaking at a depth of .03. as you can see... the cutting edge is way too long for this diameter. Got some quality bits on the way so... will take another crack at this by next weekend. anyone know the short version of how to restart mach3 at a specific line? bookmatched fretboard is hard to see here... but looking pretty respectable. joint is invisible even after radius so thrilled with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted January 26, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2021 some shots of my birdseye for the neck blanks. not blow your mind but, but not bad looking at all. my experience with birdseye so far has been it is rock solid stable. the boards these came from, have been sitting for a while now and are still perfectly flat. planed off some to see if I'll have any movement and will check again in a few days. second one isn't nearly as figured... but perfect straight grain and some flame. I think I'll try and get some more of the straight grain in the profile of the one above... but it's hard to not want to get that beautiful birdseye in there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted January 26, 2021 Report Share Posted January 26, 2021 Looking good Mike, and some really nice recon. SR 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted January 26, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2021 27 minutes ago, ScottR said: Looking good Mike, and some really nice recon. SR thank you sir. yes, that recon has surpassed all expectations. love it. going to be hard to match that color in stain... will have to grab my bootstraps!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MiKro Posted January 26, 2021 Report Share Posted January 26, 2021 What end mills are you using for the fret slots? What Feed, speed and DOC? Not sure why you started on a good fret board?. Always test new processes on scrap first. Mike 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted January 26, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2021 1 hour ago, MiKro said: What end mills are you using for the fret slots? What Feed, speed and DOC? Not sure why you started on a good fret board?. Always test new processes on scrap first. Mike well.... this was my "i don't care if I ruin it" piece... as it is the least attractive of all 4 I bookmatched. Still mounted on the machine and machine is at the zero... just not touching it till I get new bits... then i will alter my toolpath based on the new bit size... and re-cut everything - she should be fine as I cut these slots a little thin with the plan to revisit them with the fret saw.. I will be using one of the other one's for either build as the wood is a better match, but am hoping this one makes it through fine for some future build. with this bit.... the speed was set to 3 in/min. the depth was set to .03. router was running at 18k. if I bumped the speed up to 5in/min... break a bit. These were just test bits... uxcell (not exactly synonymous with quality), so didn't have high expectations (they were cheap). I've ordered a few kyocera from drillman and one from precise bits as well... should be here thursday. I'm guessing I will up my speed to 10 in/min, double my depth... and start there. Could probably raise up the spin to 24k... i dunno. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MiKro Posted January 26, 2021 Report Share Posted January 26, 2021 2 hours ago, mistermikev said: well.... this was my "i don't care if I ruin it" piece... as it is the least attractive of all 4 I bookmatched. Still mounted on the machine and machine is at the zero... just not touching it till I get new bits... then i will alter my toolpath based on the new bit size... and re-cut everything - she should be fine as I cut these slots a little thin with the plan to revisit them with the fret saw.. I will be using one of the other one's for either build as the wood is a better match, but am hoping this one makes it through fine for some future build. with this bit.... the speed was set to 3 in/min. the depth was set to .03. router was running at 18k. if I bumped the speed up to 5in/min... break a bit. These were just test bits... uxcell (not exactly synonymous with quality), so didn't have high expectations (they were cheap). I've ordered a few kyocera from drillman and one from precise bits as well... should be here thursday. I'm guessing I will up my speed to 10 in/min, double my depth... and start there. Could probably raise up the spin to 24k... i dunno. Mike speed up the IPM to about 10-12 and change the DOC to about 0.010 max maybe even 0.005" You can actually do it in one pass at full depth if you have the know how. but that requires hand writing the Gcode for every part of it. Even I still have problems with that one. It requires a slow ramping in acceleration and speed with the correct ramp i. Then once cutting it will require a ramped acceleration to the feed speed all with the correct spindle rpm. A very tedious task. I know only a few that have made it work and they won't give away there code secrets. MK 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted January 26, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2021 27 minutes ago, MiKro said: Mike speed up the IPM to about 10-12 and change the DOC to about 0.010 max maybe even 0.005" You can actually do it in one pass at full depth if you have the know how. but that requires hand writing the Gcode for every part of it. Even I still have problems with that one. It requires a slow ramping in acceleration and speed with the correct ramp i. Then once cutting it will require a ramped acceleration to the feed speed all with the correct spindle rpm. A very tedious task. I know only a few that have made it work and they won't give away there code secrets. MK ramp... doh, good call do not think I added ramping to this (depth anyway). Will def add that. Interesting thoughts on the ramp of speed too... def every time the bit broke it was the first cut through. just adding a depth ramp might improve that a lot. that said... the kyocera bits have a very short cutting edge that is just a hair longer than ideal depth. I have a feeling they are going to make things a lot better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted January 26, 2021 Report Share Posted January 26, 2021 I think your bits are too long and spindly for that kind of work. In the photo you have above it looks like there's a good 0.5" of flute length exposed below the shank of the bit. It won't take much to break such tiny bits with that much flute sticking out. The ones I'm using (mentioned in your other thread) only have a flute length of about 3mm. The shorter the effective cutting length the stronger the bit will be. @MiKro's suggestion about the depth of cut is also worth noting. Your original at 0.3" is 25% larger than the diameter of the bit, and will be pretty hard to sustain for long without breaking. General rule of thumb is to not exceed a depth of cut more than 50% of the bit diameter, ie 0.236"/2 = 0.118" DOC maximum. You'll need as much spindle speed as you can muster with such small diameter bits too, as the rate at which the cutting edges engage with the material drops with smaller diameters (spin a bicycle wheel and think about how much faster the surface of the tyre appears to move compared to the axle). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted January 26, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2021 1 hour ago, curtisa said: I think your bits are too long and spindly for that kind of work. In the photo you have above it looks like there's a good 0.5" of flute length exposed below the shank of the bit. It won't take much to break such tiny bits with that much flute sticking out. The ones I'm using (mentioned in your other thread) only have a flute length of about 3mm. The shorter the effective cutting length the stronger the bit will be. @MiKro's suggestion about the depth of cut is also worth noting. Your original at 0.3" is 25% larger than the diameter of the bit, and will be pretty hard to sustain for long without breaking. General rule of thumb is to not exceed a depth of cut more than 50% of the bit diameter, ie 0.236"/2 = 0.118" DOC maximum. You'll need as much spindle speed as you can muster with such small diameter bits too, as the rate at which the cutting edges engage with the material drops with smaller diameters (spin a bicycle wheel and think about how much faster the surface of the tyre appears to move compared to the axle). yup on the too long. was saying that earlier... those things are designed to be fragile. the other bits I bought are very different and 'stubby' by comparison. think you meant .03" there... bit is .023" but yeah i get your drift. actually in retrospect I think my doc may have been much less because as I recall it was some 7 passes to get one fret... and I think the tang depth was only .065 or something? I am guessing that's a mistake on my part - perhaps my doc was more like .01? Still those bits... just crapola. they did cut some decent frets.. nice and clean and wasn't burning... but man was it slow. the length of the cutter is too long and the design/taper of the bit is not ideal. probably could cut them off and file them and they'd do 10x better. afa 18k I chose that because it was suggested on the size of the bit by the tool database... wondered tho because my machine can do 24k. will bump that up for the new bits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted January 26, 2021 Report Share Posted January 26, 2021 1 minute ago, mistermikev said: think you meant .03" there... To-may-to. To-mah-to. What's a decimal point between friends? 3 minutes ago, mistermikev said: probably could cut them off and file them and they'd do 10x better. That's actually not as silly as it sounds. You might struggle to cut them cleanly, but if any of your broken bits have snapped close to the shoulder where they start tapering up to meet the shank you might be able to press them in to service long enough to experiment with. I've used broken 0.4mm bits to complete engraving jobs in plastic where I just needed to complete the job rather than hold things up while I wait for new bits to arrive. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted January 26, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2021 39 minutes ago, curtisa said: To-may-to. To-mah-to. What's a decimal point between friends? That's actually not as silly as it sounds. You might struggle to cut them cleanly, but if any of your broken bits have snapped close to the shoulder where they start tapering up to meet the shank you might be able to press them in to service long enough to experiment with. I've used broken 0.4mm bits to complete engraving jobs in plastic where I just needed to complete the job rather than hold things up while I wait for new bits to arrive. I hang on to them... in a pinch they might be ok. I could see them being useful for very fine detail in very soft material... and for not wanting to dull my good ones. pretty sure the dremel diamond wheel would chop em off good... then sharpen with the diamon knife sharpen rod. they were pretty cheap so not concerned. Got my $14 worth out of them in a lesson!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted January 27, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2021 if I may... @MiKro, @curtisa... on a .022" bit what should I be picking for stepover? precise bits got here today (fedex - impressive!). according to their site... initial feedrate for maple s/b .03 x diameter x #-of-flutes x spindle-rpm... setting spindle to 23k so 45ipm??!? not trying that! plunge rate for maple = 1 x diameter so .022... yeah I'll try .009 @23k with 10ipm as a starting point and see how that goes. does look like a very nice bit with coating so... added ramps to my toolpath and set a plunge speed at 5ipm... "make it so #1". will try later in the week as it's a chilly 50deg in my garage today! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted January 27, 2021 Report Share Posted January 27, 2021 Had a quick look at my last job at it seems I used 0.3mm stepdowns between each pass, no ramps, plunge at 200mm/min, feed at 400mm/min, 24k RPM. In imperial land that equates to 0.0118" stepdown, 7.9IPM plunge, 15.7IPM feed. I was getting chips instead of dust, so it must have been within the 'zone' of correct feedrate at the time. Ramping would certainly ease the bit into the cut a bit more, but I'm taking such small nibbles at conservative feedrates I'm not experiencing any issues with the values I'm using. Single width slots are notoriously hard on the cutter though, so it pays to be gentle when you can afford to do so. 1 hour ago, mistermikev said: 03 x diameter x #-of-flutes x spindle-rpm... setting spindle to 23k so 45ipm??!? Hmmm. I get 0.03 x 0.022 dia x 2 (I assume 2 flutes in your case?) x 23000RPM = 30.36IPM? Probably not unreasonable for the bits I've used up till now (I think I might have gone up to 600mm/min in the past, which is 75% of that feedrate), but I am only chomping at DOC = half the bit diameter. 45IPM seems pretty aggressive at depth of cut = 1x bit diameter, but I guess that's down to how willing you are to try and push Precise Bits for a warranty claim if/when their bits don't perform to their quoted speeds 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted January 27, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2021 4 minutes ago, curtisa said: Had a quick look at my last job at it seems I used 0.3mm stepdowns between each pass, no ramps, plunge at 200mm/min, feed at 400mm/min, 24k RPM. In imperial land that equates to 0.0118" stepdown, 7.9IPM plunge, 15.7IPM feed. I was getting chips instead of dust, so it must have been within the 'zone' of correct feedrate at the time. Ramping would certainly ease the bit into the cut a bit more, but I'm taking such small nibbles at conservative feedrates I'm not experiencing any issues with the values I'm using. Single width slots are notoriously hard on the cutter though, so it pays to be gentle when you can afford to do so. Hmmm. I get 0.03 x 0.022 dia x 2 (I assume 2 flutes in your case?) x 23000RPM = 30.36IPM? Probably not unreasonable for the bits I've used up till now (I think I might have gone up to 600mm/min in the past, which is 75% of that feedrate), but I am only chomping at DOC = half the bit diameter. 45IPM seems pretty aggressive at depth of cut = 1x bit diameter, but I guess that's down to how willing you are to try and push Precise Bits for a warranty claim if/when their bits don't perform to their quoted speeds well, this is 3 flute so... we get to 33% more ie 45ipm. afa stepdown... I'm not familiar with that term. in the software it divides up the final depth into chunks closest to my set depth... so if I go .01 depth and final depth is .07 it will make 7 passes. I was thinking that they probably would get a lot of push back on that if it wasn't accurate... but I don't need to push it that hard and not willing to risk the hassle. If I can get up to 20ipm at .009 depth I'd be thrilled. In mach3 I can override the feed rate and bump it up, but will likely try that once I have a number of bits on hand, and perhaps on some of the less expensive ones. it's only $30 for this bit but... probably be wise to save it for ebony or other really hard stuff. thank you very much for the input - most helpful!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted January 27, 2021 Report Share Posted January 27, 2021 19 minutes ago, mistermikev said: well, this is 3 flute so... we get to 33% more ie 45ipm. Ah. Gotcha. That extra flute should i(n theory) allow an extra 33% more chips to be ejected for a given speed compared to the equivalent 2-flute cutter. The idea being that you should be able to increase your feedrate by the same factor and not cause any more stress on the bit. I'd still be cautious on going all the way up to 45IPM, but that's just me. 19 minutes ago, mistermikev said: afa stepdown... I'm not familiar with that term Cross-border differences in terminology maybe? Stepdown I would equate to the cutter moving down into the work piece in increments (eg stepping down the staircase). Stepover I'd consider the bit stepping over it's previous path to make the cut wider than it was on its last run (eg stepping over the skipping rope on the ground). Maybe the two terms are interchangeable depending on the software/country/time of day/direction the wind blows? Then again, I'm well south of the equator, water goes anticlockwise down the plughole and we're all standing on our heads 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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