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I do a signature inlay with a bunch of pointy bits on it, and can't figure out an efficient way of accomodating those points in the toolpath for the fingerboard pocket. Anyone have any tips?
Thanks!

You're just going to have to resign yourself to doing some degree of rounding off the sharp points on the inlays, and use the smallest bits you can. I've been doing a lot lately with .0157" endmills, which helps. Either that, or plan to cut the corners by hand with a scalpel or X-Acto etc.

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On tips of sharp pointed inlays (lots of stars are common on banjos...), I do with the CNC the same thing that I've always done by hand--with my smallest bit, I'll rout slightly beyond the point on the inlay with a single cutter-width straight line. If carefully done, you won't see it when the inlay is in place, but it eliminates having to do the Xacto knife thing. On the CNC, I create a tiny straight line vector that bisects the point and extends JUST beyond it. The extra little cut gives just enough clearance for the point to fall in place.

Dave

I do pretty much what Dave said. Inside sharp corners are much more annoying, and in that case the only options I know of are to make the inlay from more than one piece, use a small bit and round them out, or get out the file/saw.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

What Bob said on the inside corners! Needle file time on those...

Actually, in my case where almost all of my inlay is fairly heavily engraved, I sharpen the inside corners of inlays with a graver.

Dave

I hate to give away this "secret" but it's just too brilliant not to share. When I saw this I was totally amazed and smacked myself in the face a few times because of the simplistic genius here!

http://www.vectric.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=564

I haven't tried it but, I imagine this could be done with something like abalam too if one were to get the depths just right and glue the abalam sheet to some sort of substrate. I'm also assuming that it is possible to V-carve abalam successfully.

Enjoy....

If someone tries it and succeeds, please let us know how you cut the pearl.

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I don't use abalam, but I've Vcarved real shell successfully many times. Abalam should work just as successfully.

Dave

I believe that is now a function in Vcarve pro 6.? I have used that technique before and it works quite well.

edited to add: I checked on that function and don't see it. I must have been dreaming.

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