A Cutting Board

Maple, Walnut, Padauk, and (not shown) “SYP” (I think southern yellow pine, “premium” lumber).

This is an experiment to see if I can save on material cost by using cheap wood for the bulk. The maple is only about 1/4" or maybe 3/8" thick on the top.

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Some more photos

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Wow, It looks great and that inlay is perfect!

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I like it!

This looks great, now talk dirty to me: how did you do the inlay? Did you use a pointed endmill or a flat one?

I used a 45-degree v-bit. I am not completely comfortable with sharp corners that require a 3D carving toolpath, so I modified the original pattern so it has rounded outside and inside corners. Then I used the purely 2D strategy with EstlCam that I described in detail in another thread: Vcarve Inlay help - #3 by jamiek

Something was not quite right and for some reason my test piece was showing a 1mm gap below the inlay, which I need more tests to fully understand. To reduce this, I widened the pocket by 0.33 mm with one more pass before de-energizing the steppers. Ideally I would be able to take measurements from test pieces first and not have to adapt on the fly, but I was doing the test piece and cutting the real parts at the same time.

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Thanks, will check out your other thread. I am not sure if I can run VCarve with only Estlcam. :slight_smile:

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Great work!