[glovebox20]

Hello.

I'm doing a mold, and a 1" shaft need to fit in it (see highlighted area from screen shot). Not only am I using a surfacing operation (with 1/2 ball mill), but I also have to use a contouring operation (see OP#7&8) to clean the "top edge" or the 1" shaft will not fit.

My question is, is this standard practice, or am I doing something wrong?.

glovebox20

[Pondo]

Not at my Gibbs PC, but if I were doing that part I'd select the top edge of both sides of the feature and surface between them.
If you select a lace cut or something sometimes it does what you describe. You can get around that by drawing geometry to constrain the surfacing that goes slightly beyond the features or using the 2 line surfacing.

[glovebox20]

Thanks for the response Pondo.

I selected the 'Top edges" and the surface and ran the post and I get the same path as if I were to only select the surface. I'm using the 'lace cut' method with a 1/2 ball mill with a .0005" ridge height milling the long way (0*), and the end mill stays about .0008" away from the top edge (starts at .2699 down). That means the top of the hole could be .0016" under 1.000, not allowing for a 1.000" shaft to fit. Even if I take a negative surface stock off the part (-.015"), the 1.00 shaft dose not fit. But if I clean up the edge manually using a profile operation, than it comes quite apparent that the milled surface is to large.

For software that is supposed to be easy to use, this simple task sure seems harder that it need to be.

[Pondo]

The lace cut is what's giving you the problems. It doesn't do well with vertical edges. There are ways around it, but I'd use 2 curve flow for a feature like that.
Select the top edge of 1 side, the surface, and the top edge of the other side. Then use 2 curve flow. Adjust the settings to get it to do what you want.

[glovebox20]

Thanks for clearing that up Pondo.

It makes so much more sense now.

Several years ago, I a reseller told me all I needed to know was lace cut. I might need to find a new mentor.