Carving on a curve

1

I’ve gotten into carving some of my
Shotguns and was wondering how you guys handle non flat surfaces? Like a shotgun stock? I’m using aspire 11.5 I think with a 48x96 about 2 years old

I think Avid told me a touch probe and surface mapping wouldn’t work.

2

So you have existing shotgun stocks that you want to carve in to using your CNC? If that’s the case, you will need a 3D digital model of the stock. Then when you are creating your job in Aspire (Or VCarve Pro) you load in the model and the vectors for your carving. Then you can click on the check box so the toolpaths will follow the surface of the model.

If you need the digital model, there are some options:

  1. If you have the CNC12/EX Controller upgrade, then you might be able to use a probe as I believe CNC12 supports that.
  2. Photogrammetry might work - there is a ton of info online and all you need is a camera (your phone will do) and free software.
  3. Have the shotgun stocks 3D scanned or buy a 3D scanner. There are some relatively inexpensive options but 3D scanners can run in to a LOT of money. I have a good 3D scanner and the results can be amazing. If you’re anywhere near Pittsburgh, PA I might be able to scan them for you.

Hope this helps,
Garth

3

Garth: What scanner do you have?

4

I have an Einscan Pro HD by Shining.

5

Thanks for the information and the offer. I’m in Mississippi so I would have to mail you one with return label to see how the 3d scanning works. It’s peaked my interest now.

If you have time could you list a few 3d scanners that you think would do what I’m looking for ?

Thanks

6

The world of 3d scanning changes so quickly that the research I did when I selected my scanner is out of date. Fundamentally most scanners are designed to do one of the following jobs:

  1. really high detail of small things
  2. good detail of small and medium sized things (which is what I have)
  3. big things like scanning a person or car parts

A shotgun stock is a medium sized thing with relatively little detail (as opposed to a complex carving).

A very real challenge here - and something I would have to think about how to do - is getting the digital object aligned perfectly with how you would mount the stock on the CNC - being off in angle or rotation could really mess up the v-carving. I’d also have to think about what I would charge for something like this. I run a custom woodshop and the scanner and CNC are parts of my business.

7

Slightly off topic, but when I first started with CAD and my CNC, I wanted to model a guitar neck. My search on how to do this was "The pros find neck they really like (carved by hand) and then scan it it in for machining… " :open_mouth:

Not the answer you want to hear! Fortunately, I was able to figure out how to model my own…