7. Computer-controlled machining

1. Open VCarve and select open an existing file.

2. Select the DXF file of your pieces.

3. The default material panel will appear. Here we will edit the size of our job's workspace, and the origins .

The size I selected was a Length (x) of 1220 mm, Height (y) 2440 mm and a Width (z) of 12 mm.

4. With the command M, I moved my pieces, then I rotated them to fit the workspace. For the missing pieces I will repeat the procress an create a different toolpath for another plywood board.

5. Then I selected the Join Vectors tool, that will close all the open vectors I have (this is important for the next step).

6. Select the "Create Fillet" tool, and select the dog-bone fillet.

Apply the fillet to the internal edges, these will help us in our assembly process.

7. Select the vector of the toolpath you want to create, and select profile toolpath.

6. Go to file and select export in SVG.

Fixing error: One path was merged with another of a different color. So I used the scissors tool (C) to cut and separate them

6. Once they were different paths I change the ear outline to its correct color. Now the vector is ready to export.

For this exercise, this was the router we used.

2. First we need to turn it on.

3. Then we turned on the PC, and added a usb with our file (March 2/3 Arc .txt)

4. We open our file, and we will see the toolpaths. But before running the program we need to set the x,y,z origins.

For the Z, I moved the tool to the center and moved the Z axis until it touched my material. Once it was done, I set it as my zero, then moved it upwards.

After that, I moved the tool to the right bottom corner, to determine my x and y. Once it was adjusted I set them as my origin. I liberated the mergency button and start the cut.

Here is a video of how it runned

3.3 Change the parameters to your necesities

4. Move the image trace parameters to your necesities, I chose the color mode and moved the advanced features to my liking. Then clicked expand.

If you rasterized, the results will change a little (have less fidelity to the original image, in this case it colored the ear outline with yellow, but can be fixed)

5. After expanding, you have your vectorized image. (This was the result without rasterizing, ready to export).

6. Go to file and select export in SVG.

Fixing error: One path was merged with another of a different color. So I used the scissors tool (C) to cut and separate them

6. Once they were different paths I change the ear outline to its correct color. Now the vector is ready to export.

1. Once our pieces are cutted, we need to sand them because of the wood shavings.

Here is the difference between two pieces

2. Somewhere in my toolpath procress I omitted two joints for the pivots of the table, and I realized after cutting the pieces so I ended up doing by hand.

To do so, I took the reference measures from my CAD model, the I troce the section to be removed and with a chisel & a hammer, I started removing the material, until I had a hole.

Then with a bastard file, to remove material and even the cut.

With that I could join the pieces together.

Another issue I found, was that I didnt configure correctly the nocth.

So I ended using a chisel, and sanded the are afterward.

Here is a speed video of how I joined the pieces, because I usse 0 tolerance and the wood was a little bit warped, some joints were to tight, so with the file I removed material and with the hammer I applied force.

This was the final result.