I think I have finally accomplished what I want for this box. I have not done any cleanup or finish on it. Doesn’t need much. I can see now that I need to check my tram and spoil surface. Mill marks are evident for the stepdown. Also in the pocket I can see a little tooling marks. Not bad, but I don’t know what is possible for surface finish. The one thing I can say is that Ryan’s design is amazing. And the assistance and direction given to have success on the MPCNC on the forum and in documentation really makes this stuff possible without much experience ahead of time. I’m going to document my workflow. Thanks to Uncle Phil for his video on making one of these.
I wanted to get from pink foam to the nice hard wood cabinet door samples that I have. I have about 50 pieces of these samples from a former kitchen designer. Walnut, hickory, cherry, birch, oak. All beautifully finished. I was trying to figure out 2.5D operations in EstlCAM. It’s a bit complex, but after doing in many times, I think I can remember all the parameters that need to be checked and in what order.
How I figured out that I didn’t have my tool diameter correct.
Graduated to MDF. Had holding tabs the full depth of material. Remember to set that lower.
Pretty nice result in the oak. Still used holding tabs. The fit for the top and bottom were just perfect. But then I was not satisfied with the holding tab remnant. I split the top of a beautiful bit of cherry while I was cutting the tabs off. Then I decided to switch to masking tape and hot glue. I hadn’t given any extra tolerance to the inner part, either taking away from exterior tenon or taking away from the interior rebate. They fit but don’t come apart very easily.
So I redid the design to give a .2mm tolerance all around and that made it slip in perfectly and hold. Here is what the design looks like in Inkscape:
I made an 80mm box. Easy enough to make a square. Pull the corners in for a radius. Duplicate and enter in the dimensions of the inner steps of the box. So the middle one is 70mm and the inner one is 60mm. Use the alignment object to center inside each other. Duplicate the object. Then go back and make one of the center lines smaller. That is tricky. You can’t just resize it because that might not give you the shape you want. Offsets also work by approximations in Inkscape. I do the process whereby you make the line thick, then stroke to path, then break apart and choose the inner shape. That’s a whole tutorial in itself.
I’ll go through my process for EstlCAM in the hopes that it will help others and that others my point out things that I could improve. The material is 19.5mm thick.
Select your tool and have your feeds and stepdowns correct, including finishing pass parameters.
First select the part tool and click on the middle line of the left part. That’s all for this one.
Select the hole tool and click on the outer line, then the Island icon in lower right. Then set the depth. Then finishing tool, which is the same bit and allowance and strategy. You have the first operation done.
Using the hole tool, select the inner path. We are going to make a 15mm deep pocket in the center of the part. Set depth and then set finishing pass
Using the hole tool select the middle line of the part on the right and make a 10mm pocket. Set finish pass too.
Using the hole tool, select the inner line of the right part and make a 5mm pocket that starts at the 10mm depth that was just created in the previous pocket. Set finish pass too. This was the operation that I had to think through and test out to see how it worked to do it more efficiently.
Now we are going to cut the parts out. One could do this in one operation, but I to speed it up, I did it in two since the first 10mm don’t need a finishing pass on the inside.
Here is the second parting operation that begins at the 10mm and then goes to depth. I’m wondering if this is the best way to do it, but it has worked so far.
Right side is full depth.
Here is the path.
adjusted large fit box.zip (275.4 KB)
Here is the EstlCAM Project, SVG, and the gcode for what it’s worth.
The results so far.