The VCarve Inlay Technique

[Music] [Applause] in this video I'm going to explain the be carved technique for creating wouldn't in lace I will also demonstrate this method by making a coaster with a butterfly in light v carp inlays have two big advantages the first is you can create complex inlays with sharp corners and multiple parts with a single piece of wood for easy assembly second because of the wedge-shaped of the inlay they can tolerate gluing alignment and machining errors quite well even in thin pieces of wood if you would like to skip the next section explaining the background on how we carve inlays work jump to the 9 minutes 30 seconds mark in the video to get to the CAD cam tutorial if you want to skip all the way to the machining section jump to the 22 minutes 40 seconds mark [Music] first I'm gonna go through some theory of V carve inlays and the basics of how to machine them so in this diagram the blue arrow represents the V bit and the brown rectangle represents the material we're going to cut in and this is general generally how AV bit cuts it leaves a channel with angled edges so we're gonna look at one of those edges a little more closely and if we split this horizontally down the middle so we split the depth of the channel so here's a line representing that and then we take the material that's above the lines so it's color that yellow and we rotate that around you notice that it's a perfect fit into that channel so this observation is the key to designing be carved inlays all right so we're gonna define a few terms to help us machine these first is that line that we created is really called the artwork plane and so this is the plane where you'd create your designs or any shapes that you want to have in ways the clay [Music] so once that artwork plane is defined well notice that the inlay how it was machined has really formed above the artwork and note since we had to flip it over to fit inside the channel that we got to remember to mirror our work horizontally when we're working on the CAD and cam also that the base pocket is formed below the our work plane so now that we've looked at that we can see that both parts can meet machine separately and so you just have to play close attention to that artwork plane when you're setting up the machining process [Music] okay so looking at the base this can be machined with a usual standard beaker of operation and looking at the inlay itself so this can be cut by first flipping it over and so this is why we have to invert the artwork and now we want a machine that have the inverse parts of the wood so we want to in we want to leave proud the parts that we're pocketing out of the base so when we're doing this we also don't want to cut all the way through the material and so by leaving this kind of base at the bottom of the inlay this allows us to have multiple parts to the inlay all attached together and so we can glue them in all at one time and another thing to note is that the inlay needs to match the shape of the artwork we have at the bottom of the V car not at the top so this means when we machining the B carve we need to do a start at the depth equal to the inlay thickness [Music] so there are also a couple things we need to do to make this method more practical because we've machined it as is we've talked about there could be errors in the depth or the widths of sizes and then they inlay won't turn out as well so a few things to add to make it more practical the first one is usually called the glue gap and this is at the bottom of the inlay this also doubles as a gap to allow for depth of machining errors as well as when you're inserting the inlay sometimes you don't get it in there and a perfect angle and so this channel allows you to have misalignments slight misalignment and the inlay still worth looks great at the end and to accomplish that extra gap all we do is add a little depth to the base pocket when we're cutting to inlay and another important thing to add is a gap between the base and the inlay backing and this is because after the glue is dried for the inlay I usually take a bandsaw and insert it into this gap and allows me to cut off most of the inlay waste material and so and this can be done by adding some what's called flats of depth to the V car operation and essentially just a little extra depth beyond where the artwork plane is and I'll go through that in a little bit more depth here in a bit [Music] okay so let's go over some of the basics of how we're gonna machine these it's first the base [Music] so here's the base and this is what the dialogue looks like in either be car or aspire the main components is essentially the cutting depths there's a start depth and a flat depth option you get and so for the base the start depth is really the depth to which we want the artwork plane to be in the material and so in the base that's zero is at the top of the surface and the flat depth is the depth that we want the B car to cut to and so in this case it's really the inlaid depth plus the glue gap and for the example of using in this video the inlay depth is going to be a tenth of an inch and the glue gap is going to be about 50 thousandths so the total flat depth is 0.15 inches [Music] all right so we'll look at now the inlay part so we're gonna machine this flipped over and we'll bring up the dialogues this is the dialogue again from be Carver aspire again now we gotta set the depth start depth and the flat depth and this is really the key to doing be carve inlays and so the start depth is the depth at which we want the artwork plane to be located and that is the inlay depth so for this case it's 0.1 inches and then we want to add a little gap to be able to cut off the backing from the inlay and so that is the flat depth and in this case is another point one inches [Music] and note that I'm using the exact same tool between the base and the inlay which is a 60-degree B carve it all right one other thing to note you should be careful as each V bits they can cut to different depths and so you want to make sure that your inlay depths and your gaps are all within your bits capability for example in the base they are two components their start depth and the flat depth and that's equal to the inlay depth plus the glue gap and so those two added together in this case our 0.15 inches so we just have to make sure that the V bit can cut at least 0.15 inches deep and similarly for the inlay so we have the inlaid depth which is the start depth and then the flat depth is the gap for cutting off the waste material to add those two together and we get a total depth of 0.2 inches so in the case I'm using a just a quarter-inch V bit and it has a cut depth of a little over 22 inches so it'll work well for this example but for deeper inlays you're gonna need a larger B bit and this is what the basin inlay part should look like after they are cut out next I'm going to show you how to design and create the tool paths for the coaster base and this is done in either vector X aspire or V car programs so first up set the width of the material to 5 inches and the height to 4 inches and a thickness about a quarter of inch or whatever your material is now I usually put the zero point in the lower left corner and then hit OK after that we're gonna create the outer profile for the coaster which is centered in the material and the diameter of 3.7 inches to create that and then I'm going to create a little chamfer around this profile so I'm going to create another two circles just slightly larger at three point seven four and then three point six six so if I just do a V car between these two lines that'll give a kind of a small chamfer around the outside of the coaster so I close that and I'm going to move these two circles to a new layer and I call that the border chamfer you can create a new one there I've already created one there to quickly move it and then next I'm going to create kind of a decorative groove around the outside so we're gonna do that by creating another circle at the same Center first at 3.5 inches and then another at 23.4 inches all right let's lick those and then move those to a new layer [Music] and then we'll just call that Decco for decoration have you changed the color so you can see it alright and the next I'm going to create a kind of a guide for where to place this the artwork or the butterfly I want to create one more circle for that and the diameter for this circle is going to be three inches all right the next is going to import the artwork so I'm going to import as a vector there's the butterfly so you notice this wallet is centered in the workpiece it doesn't look quite centered because of the larger wings at the top and so I'm just going to shift that down a little bit by selecting it all and using the arrow keys to kind of visually Center it a little bit more in the coaster looks about right so it's touching the guide circle there all right so now this is the design of the coaster itself and we regenerate the toolpaths for it so when I make two different tool paths we're going to do some V carving for the chamfer this groove and the design itself and then we're going to cut out the profile so the first thing is the V carve so we're gonna select the vectors for that select each one by holding down shift [Music] the important things here are to make sure their start depth is zero and then your flat depth send it to the thickness that you want the inlay to be plus a little extra space for the glue it so in this case the inlay thickness is going to be 0.1 and the glue space is going to be point zero five so the those add up to 0.15 inches all right then calculate that and then we can preview that toolpath alright that looks pretty good so I'll close that down and next I look at the profile so we're going to set up the profile for this one we're going to do a start depth of zero cut depth we're going to go all the way through the material plus about 25,000 just to make sure we get all the way through and then I have selected an 8 inch end mill here and this is going to take five passes I'm usually pretty conservative on how many passes I use and then we'll also add some tabs so first we guys select the profile I want to edit the tabs yes I usually put in about three tabs on a coasters [Music] and I usually add a ramp about a half-inch calculate and it just give you a warning that is gonna cut all the way through so hit okay and preview that toolpath and that looks pretty good the base of the coaster is ready to go okay now we're gonna make the inlay part that goes into the coaster we're gonna make this out of maple and with the materials gonna be 5 inches height the 4 and a thickness of a quarter-inch first thing is to bring in the artwork once the butterflies in because we're going to insert this flip it over when we insert it into the poster we have to mirror it horizontally so this is almost already symmetrical but I'm gonna click the left horizontal button it does flip it alright now I'm going to create the zone around the butterfly that I want to clear out and I pick a fairly big one because I use a bandsaw to cut this inlay part out before I insert into the coaster so the region is going to be about 3 and 3/4 inches in diameter that's a bit big so what I'm going to do is cut the down the top and the bottom parts of the circle just a little bit and I'm just gonna quickly trim off those extra regions okay now you can just V carve this if you would like but I don't like to V carve it directly I like to be able to control how deep each pass goes with the clearing tool especially for if you want do this with really hard woods I find that if you go too deep on the clearing cuts I can break bits or other things so what I make my own kind of regions so to do that I just select the artwork and then I use this little offset tool and the first offset this point zero eight inches this gets it outside of kind of where the V bit will cut so I offset that it's got to delete some of these little extra parts that show up [Music] I just been looking for that outside line then I select the outside line and I offset that again by about a tenth of an inch okay so what this line out here and this land out here represent is what I'm going to use to clear with the larger end mill so I'm going to move these to a different layer let's call these the clearing vectors and then this right here is going to be the outside of where I'm going to be carved so I just move that to the be carved boundary just to make it a little easier to see all right so that's all we need for the CAD and now it is time to create the tool paths so the first thing we got to do is do the clearing passes we're going to do that between these two blue lines and do that with a pocket pocket out between this blue line and that one I'm going to go down to a depth of cut which is 0.2 inches and this is going to be the total that we also want to do the V car so this comes from the fact that we're doing a 0.1 inch inlay and then we want point 1 inch sticking out from the inlay to give us a gap to do cut the bandsaw go through the bandsaw so this is cutting off the backing of the innate parts and I'm going to use a quarter inch end mill so I'll take two passes so if you're just doing this with a regular V cut and using a clearance you wouldn't get these two passes because you're going to start depth it's going to be 0.1 and it so it only thinks it's cutting point 1 this is why I prefer this method all right so I'll calculate that and we'll preview that cut [Music] [Music] ok so now we're going to do the next cut which is the V carve so this would be a B car and we're going to select here is this outer boundary as well as the original artwork what you can do by just clicking on the layer that and his shift clicked at the lair and then the outer boundary and here this is the important part of setting up the inlay is the depth start is the thickness of the inlay so that's point one and the flat depth is how much it's going to stick out in the end so that's point one I'm going to use a sixty degree B bit same as on the coaster calculate that and then we can preview this V car and there we have it you can look around the edges it should have cleared away all the extra material so why we move that boundary out just a little bit it looks good so now we're going to select these toolpaths and save it out for machining and that's it and again here's what the final base and inlay part should look like next up I'm going to show you how I make them with the CNC router the process begins by selecting a piece of quarter-inch walnut and maple they are 5 inches tall and 4 inches wide I'm going to cut the base first by clamping it on the bed of the machine homing all the accesses and then setting up the Z and then X Y zero points here's the fourth inch sixty degree V bit [Music] I use a homemade laser guide to help quickly set the x and y zero points [Music] and now we're ready to start the machine [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] here I'm switching to a 1/8 inch and mil to rout out the profile the coaster and then re measuring the two lengths [Music] [Music] next I'll make the inmate [Music] for the clear out past the first bit used is 1/4 inch end mill [Music] since this is a new piece of wood I rezero all the accesses [Music] [Music] [Music] I switched back to the same fourth inch v-bit to finish all of the inlay edges [Music] next I hand sand the parts to remove any excess chips [Music] using the bandsaw I cut out around the in play the two parts should fit together snugly without any gaps [Music] then I use a paint brush to spread the glue into the base I use tape bond to wood food I don't like to use type on three because it dries to a much darker color back to the bandsaw to cuff to inlay backing this step is much easier if you leave the coaster in the original workpiece and don't cut off the tabs first here I'm sanding the edges and removing the remainder of the tabs next I use a belt sander to remove the bulk of the remaining inlay backing and excess glue a 3d printed a jig to help me hold the coasters as they had sanded my finger a few too many times [Music] I finished by hand sanding with 320 grit paper and sand date and note the wood species on the back with a wood burner the vacuum cleaner removes any remaining dust then I finished the coasters with polyurethane I give the coasters two coats of clear gloss followed by a coat of satin on each side after the coaster is dry I finish it by adding a three inch cork disc to the bottom side now I'm going to make a coaster holder this coaster holder is meant to hold four coasters and is simply a rectangular block with a chamfered edge and slots to hold the coasters and this is what it looks like roughly when I'll be finished through the coasters sitting in the holder alright I'll turn off the coasters now [Music] alright here's what the coaster holder looks like with no coasters in it and I'll show you the most important dimensions all right it's about three and 3/4 inches long and about three and 1/8 inches tall the slots are 2.71 9 inches by 0.355 and these dimensions I got by just trial and error by trying out different depths and widths and the other dimension that's important is the depth of cut of these slots and so that depth is 0.55 inches so that is the design of the coaster holder I use a jig or previously made coaster holder to help me quickly set up the saws to cut the 3/4 inch material to size [Music] then I use the same basic steps to route out the slots in the coaster [Music] [Music] [Music] after rough sanding I hand route the champers finish up by hand-sanding signing the back and then applying the same coats of polyurethane [Music] [Music]

Channel: Shawn Gano

Views: 512,034

Keywords: CNC, CNC Router, VCarve, V-Carve, Inlay, Inlays, VCarve Inlay, V-Carve Inlay, V Carve, V Carve Inlay, Wood, Woodworking, Tutorial, How to make a V-Varve Inlay, Shawn, Gano, Shawn Gano, Walnut Inlay, Wood Inlays, Aspire, Vectric, Fusion 360, Probotix, 3D Printing, Jig, Coaster, Make a wooden coaster, make a coaster, make an inlay, butterfly, butterfly coaster, waltnut inlay, maple inlay, how to make a coaster, Maker Space, Maker, DIY, Design, Christmas Present Idea, Christmas

Id: l4VMo9DCzO8

Length: 33min 6sec (1986 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 20 2017