Hi All,
follow up to my first post where i was explaining my issues with Photo Carving ply, these are all sorted now.
The ones below i cut at 20 degree angle to the grain and hey presto no chipping and much finer finish on the line spacing.
Still using the boot polish idea for filling the lines and happy with my results.
Now to try different color varnishes etc.
Oh a note to anyone using steel wool to fine sand, dont cut peices off with scissors, i didnt realise that stuff could ignite so easy, and when i cut a peice off with metal scissors it created a spark and wouldnt go out until i soaked (and ruind) the wire wool.

Hi
What brand of boot polish are you using. You just may have the answer for finishing PVC’s people have been looking for. I wonder if that would work on 3D?
Nice work
Dan

Hi there thanks for the comments, boot polish i use is just black unbranded from the tin wax based boot polish.

Great job with the PVC. I can not seem to get anywhere near that quality. What settings and bits are you using? Is this just regular ply or is this the mdf ply?

I will post my file later when i get home, bits are cheap engraving bits from ebay (China), the ply is an exterior plywood maybe known as Marine ply, it is what is used in DIE Cutting formes, look for a local Forme maker (print industry) and he should have loads of offcuts you can have for free, i have cut the same pictures repeatedley and found running the tool through a second time helps clear the fuzzy bits.
Main change i found was on ply 20 degree angle to the grain (see the pictures).
Will post files and settings later.
Regards
darren

Thanks darren. I never thought about talking to a die maker for cutoffs, and I am IN the print industry. I guess thats a case of not seeing the forest for the trees. Thanks for the info and will be looking for your settings.
Have a great day.
paul

Ok i am including the photo carve file i created but basically i have found the following.
Try to set angle of cut at 20 degrees approx to the grain of the cut, if you want a 45 degree angle rotate the wood a little on your cutting bed.
I get all my ply free from a forme maker and i then apply 2 - 3 coats of clear varnish with a steel wool sanding in between each coat.
On the pic of my rottie above i used the following settings.
Material size 300 wide x 200 high 9mm thick ply
60 degree engraving bit (thats a 30 degree side angle) i got caught out and was inputing a 60 degree bit as a 60 degree angle after noticing in the tool screen that the angle was a side angle and not overall angle like a v bit i changed it in my settings)
Ok back to the bit, 60 degree 0.1mm tip 3mm shaft
My feed i have not even really looked at but it is set to 50mm/sec and 12000 rpm i have my kress set to no 3 which is approx 12500rpm
My max depth is .8mm (sorry no imperial unles over an inch)
I have the line spacing at 114% that equates to a 1.168mm line spacing gap., i have gone to under 1mm gap in ply but then use a 40degree bit.


Like i say the thing i found to better my results was purley grain direction and the engraving angle.
I then cut the item and after cutting i drop the z axis by 0.1mm and re run the cut this cleans any bits out of the grooves.
At this point whilst still bolted to machine i add my boot wax, straight from the tin using one of the brushes for polishing shoes, i make sure all lines are filled then wipe of excess, it will leave a staining effect to the varnish but i then give it a light sand to take top layer of varnish off.


Hope this ends up usefull to someone.
Unfortunatley the file is 5.08meg so cannot upload it if anyone would like it then PM me.

Another photo carve this time importing into V carve to do text and borders etc.

Those VCarves look really good. I will have to have another go using your method as I got very discouraged with the chip out of th grain between lines. Even more than that I like the effect you get by VCarving the Text into the ply with the cross ply making the text stand out.
Thanks for sharing.

Cheers
Peter

Thank you tafkadaz,

I have fought PhotoVCarve for 3 years trying to get decent or even half decent VCarves in wood but all I got was wood chipout and disappointment. Until not I have avoided this method and concentrated on Lithophanes and grayscale cuts but not any more.
Finally I can now produce perfect, repeatible PhotoVCarves without these problems.

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers
Peter

Thanks for the photos of what can be done with Vcarve. Great work.

Does anyone know if there is an instruction sheet or plan of what to do with a photo prior to importing to PhotoVcarve or for that matter Vcarve Pro to enable one to achieve results like these. I ask because I am a wood worker, not a photographer and what I have achieved is making firewood out of my machine when it comes to carving a photo. I have Nero 7, a very old Corel Photo House and I downloaded Gimp but now at a loss as to where to go (OK I know that ) Cant afford $600 for the new Corel stuff from Adobe after buying the machine.
Allen

Hi,
i also have no prior experience in any photo editing software and on this image i just cut away the background, i think this can be done in paint a little crudley using a pen to draw round then filling with a background colour, finally use the option in photocarve to make the background colour transparent.
I do have Adobe CS5 that has awsome features none of what i understand but thats about all i do with my pictures, i have tried making them black and white etc but have not really found that much difference in the end product.
Don't get me weong some of the ones i cut recently are not as good as the one posted here, i think certain images lend themselves better that others to be cut into wood.
For other pictures we have done take a look at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=100001103734205
or our online shop newly launched (no orders yet) at http://www.freewebstore.org/KustomCut

Thanks for the reply, I will try it with paint, I have been converting to greyscale and getting poor results, maybe leaving color is the best bet. Will try it and thanks. Will definately use your cutting perameters
BTW great web site easy to navigate and not cluttered. Now I need to go back to the books and relearn the conversion charts for mm's and in's.
Allen