My First Carve

As mentioned in the Purpose Of This Site page, my first carve was based on a forum post where GlennMDutcher stated what he used:

• Dewalt set to 6
• 200 IPM
• .015 DOC
• 11 degree bit

I did a quick search on the internet and found an .stl file I could start with.  I use VCarve Pro so I opened it up, set some material dimensions, imported the .stl, and generated some carve gcode.

Except for setting my Dewalt to a speed of 6 (I keep mine at 1 which could have been the reason for my poor results) I used all of his values for carve.  Here are my results -

In the first image you can see evidence of melting.  The bit had quickly built up a blob of vinyl, which was just above the surface of the material, and as it was spinning created so much heat that it caused the top-side melted edges.  Before the router moved to the second item to carve I paused the process and knocked the blob off with a pencil.  After restarting it never blobbed again.  But, as can be seen in the other 2 pictures, there was a very rough cut with some pieces being broken off. 

I did a poor job of securing the material and it was bouncing around quite a bit while the router was doing its thing.  Although I believe that bouncing contributed to pieces breaking, I do feel the aggressive speed of the router's movement also played a role.

Plans for next carve - try a different bit, secure the material better, and slow things down.