Hey everyone. I’m working on my first real project, outside of drawing a few fun things and cutting a plastic cover out of some 1/8 stock, and could use some advice. I’m trying to cut some crank baits out of balsa wood for my brother in law. I found an STL file on thingiverse, reduced the mesh in fusion so it would like it better and set up 3 different tools paths to cut one out. I tried it in the green foam you put cut/fake flowers in ( I know its not the pink stuff from home depot but I had it handy) and it seems to have worked quite well.
I have a couple of questions though.
- I ran this at 2000 mm/minute, with an 1/8 inch 2 fluted bit. I know balsa wood is going to be harder but do you think this will hold up? I see 1500ish in pine and balsa is going to be half at most or less than half as dense. Do you think 2000 will hold up? I know the best way to tell is just to test it but any advice would be great.
- This took 31 minutes to complete, with over 20 of it coming from the roughing operation using 3d adaptive in Fusion. And watching the tool path, it just didn't seem very efficient. I know I screwed up a few things setting it up originally, first I set my clearance height way too high and z movement was slow, whatever it defaults at. I have no idea what I should be setting that at and if default is right, lowering my clearance will still make that movement way more efficient. Also I didn't change my rapid move speed, so it was actually moving slower above the work piece than it was cutting. These are easy things that shouldn't be an issue, but the path looked might inefficient. Lots of stops and starts and picking up and moving to a different section to just cut a single slot and then pick up and cut another slot somewhere else. It sure seemed like cutting in concentric circles without all the wasted movement would have been way faster. Is there a time when the adaptive clearing is more appropriate than others?
