[Dylwad]

You should try dymondwood

[CarveOne]

Not sure, I have a few of the exotics I picked up at Woodcraft. I think I need to find the 1911 grips and see how they do the cross hatching stuff on them... I might put some sort of symbol in the middle.

Parallel vector lines across the grip surface at 30 degrees to the center line through the grip holes. Space the parallel vectors for 20 to 26 lines per inch. 32 line checkering is a very fine checker pattern normally used on fine shotguns and such. Look at a factory pair and measure the spacing that they used. You can draw a serpentine pattern for one tool path if the move-overs are just outside the grip profile vector.

Hand checkering is done with a 60 degree checkering tool. To do it correctly with a CNC machine the V-bit would need to be in a 4th rotary axis so the cutter can stay pretty close to perpendicular to the surface of the grip no matter what the surface curve does.

Realistically, it can be done in a 3 axis machine on 1911A grips as long as the design (like a logo) stays near the middle 1/3 of the grip width. The grip can be checkered full width, but around the edges of the grip the checkering points will appear to lean a little. The radius of the 1911A curved surface is fairly shallow. The leaning points has no effect on function other than looks odd to someone who does hand checkering.

I have some files with full checkering that Khalid made for me a few years ago when I built my first CNC machine, and some files from KT Ordinance that has some bordered checkering around the grip screw holes that leave a round opening in the middle of the grips for a logo - if I can still find them. KT's gcode files were generated for a CNC Bridgeport style mill and I never found and fixed all the errors when running it with Mach3. The errors were related to functions that my machine doesn't have and they could be commented out, deleted, or substitute the equivalent code that works with Mach3.

[CarveOne]

Not sure, I have a few of the exotics I picked up at Woodcraft. I think I need to find the 1911 grips and see how they do the cross hatching stuff on them... I might put some sort of symbol in the middle.

Woodcraft sells the multicolored birch plywood and they have 3" x 36" x 1/4" sheets of other woods that are convenient when you don't have a band saw and planer.

[Arbo]

Never heard of dymond wood, looked at it, looks interesting, but is pricy.

Thanks for the info C1, will mess around with it a bit.

[Dylwad]

Never heard of dymond wood, looked at it, looks interesting, but is pricy.

Thanks for the info C1, will mess around with it a bit.

I get it in small knife handle size blanks. Cool stuff to work with, I have seen its strength compared to brass in some ways. Hard as a rock but easy to machine. Takes a good polish, almost hard to call it wood after working with it.

[Dylwad]

Rings with corian inlays before polishing

[Arbo]

The rings are cool. I was thinking one of the things I needed to start learning was inlays. Obviously you cut the pockets for the inlay in the 'wood'... do you cut the corian inlays to 'full height and then sand them down flush?

[Dylwad]

Wood gets pocketed, corian gets pocketed a little deeper than the wood, cheating on the bit size to make it smaller to leave room for some glue, corian gets bonded to the wood, back side of the corian than gets machined off. I used a .8mm bit for the ring inlays, pocketed .1" deep, and used CA to bond it

You can get insanely intricate using this method, and workholding is easy.

[Arbo]

Oh, I was thinking the corian was little pieces... but you pretty much make a 'negative', attach it and then clamp the ring and machine away the corian on the top (if I understand right). Very cool.

[Dylwad]

Exactly right, It is pretty cool. Got the idea from a link posted on the zone somewhere years ago, I think they used Vcarve in the article.

I played with inlaying the inlay too, makes some crazy patterns, I love the look on peoples faces when they try to figure out how it was done, or think about the time I would have spent gluing each little piece in one by one.

[Arbo]

well, I have poly on the oak for the next box... just need to figure out what designs I want to do on it. Also put poly on some scrap oak, and a piece of maple and alder that I had picked up, just so they are ready for any carving. The oak and alder look real nice, the maple is kinda plane...

[Arbo]

I think my next box is going to be a celtic theme... I found this border which I will put as a background in CAD and trace over for (hopefully) a nice vcarving on the top... already have another piece for the center on the top I'm working on...

[CarveOne]

I like the Celtic art. This will be a really nice looking border. Good find.

[Arbo]

I like the Celtic art. This will be a really nice looking border. Good find.

I'll pass it on whenever I get done with it.

[CarveOne]

That one is going to be tough to convert to vectors. The image resolution is not very high. I found this one and many others this evening and chose a simpler one to work on that is not rectangular. It's an embroidery pattern.

I've also been working on an Aztec serpent with two heads. The 2D outlines are completed but the small details for the appearance of scales have issues with overlapping vectors that prevent tool path calculation from completing. I was going to make the body vectors into a rounded model with some of the small details mapped onto it.

[Arbo]

That's where creativity comes in... going off pattern where it makes sense just to make sure the v carve will come out ok.

[CarveOne]

If I were doing that one I would do the leaves in 2D vcarve and model the knots to half round shape. Is that close to what you had in mind?

[CarveOne]

The Aztec Moon Goddess would be an interesting project.

[Arbo]

Maybe down the road, but at first, it's all just going to be v carve... not even sure how much trouble the two different styles would be in vcarvepro, which I still am working on saving money for.

[CarveOne]

Maybe down the road, but at first, it's all just going to be v carve... not even sure how much trouble the two different styles would be in vcarvepro, which I still am working on saving money for.

For the 2D knots I think you would want to select the vectors so that it leaves a flat top and beveled edges for the knots. Same for the other parts of the design.

In Aspire, the knot vectors could be raised and made rounded. The other parts would be Vcarved. At the small size the leaves are there would be no advantage of making them into models.