Artifacts using an offset finishing toolpath....

[manfulldesign]

Every corner in the offset tool path leaves a ''line'', see attached. I have also included pics of the tool path preview and final carve rendering. The tool was a 1/16'' taper ball. I tried to use the raster tool path which doesn't leave any artifacts, but takes more than five times longer to carve (over 20 hours). Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

[gerry]

Please post your crv file. If it's too big, post it to Google Drive or Dropbox and provide a link.

[manfulldesign]

Here is a link:

www.dropbox.com/s/6kmpoigmdduili1/big-horn-sheep5.crv?dl=0

The above link has been revised.  This is the offset tool path CRV.

Thanks for your help!

[gerry]

It looks like two separate things. I changed the Material to Gold Satin, because it has no grain. There are no vertical lines in the preview. With the Cherry setting, I think you were mistaking wood grain for the model carve. It may be bit drag that you are actually seeing in the carve. Your settings for Gaps Above Material are only 0.2". You might try increasing those numbers.

I tested in both versions 10.5 and 11 of Aspire.

P.S. Changing the Finish from Offset to Raster drops the Finish time from 1:58.00 to 1:03:00.

[joeblow]

When using the offset strategy the stepover retract is designed to help minimize that line. Use .02 as a starting number and see how you like the outcome. I noticed you have a 7% stepover set for your roughing toolpath which is quite small. Can save a lot of time by moving that up to at least 20% or more. Also your finish toolpath has a 3% stepover set for the .0625TBN which is roughly .003 per stepover. I find .005 or 8% stepover is usually more than sufficient for the .0625TBN. This will save you a little more time as well.

I suspect your "scale factor" in the summary/estimated time window is set high. When I open your file it appears to default to my setting of 1.2 because when I recalculate toolpaths all times are much lower than what your file originally presents.

Cool model by the way.

[manfulldesign]

Thanks guys for your help. Between changing the preview to the gold satin and adjusting the stepover retract I have the problems solved and will try a new test carve next week. Oh by the way, the carving time I stated at about 20 hours was real. It took over twenty hours to carve this damn thing. The time is reduced by a large factor.

[manfulldesign]

And the model was originally a 3D printed ring (additive rather than subtract) but it worked fine for the carving. I added the swept profile and pocket carve to avoid the ''ring'' part.