Rotary Project / Dining Table Leg

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Looking for advice with a rotary job, this is my first time with a rotary CNC but have done plenty of lathe turning. I have searched forums and video tutorials extensively to try to find an answer to my question but so far have come up with nothing.

I’m using VCarve Pro 12.5.

I need to produce a dining table leg with a square pommel at the top and round turning for the remainder.

Table leg with square pommel;
Table leg with square pommel;1920×2877 477 KB

According to Vectric support I need to start with a “rounding tool path”, but to achieve a 4” x 4” square pommel at the top of the leg, I would need to start with a blank of a minimum size of 5.65” X 5.65” (red square) to turn it into a cylinder (blue circle) which could accommodate the 4” X 4” (green square) I am looking for.

Screenshot (27)
Screenshot (27)599×503 2.75 KB

To waste 1.65” of material and spend time on machining does not seem like a good business practice.

Or another exaggerated example would be a 1.5” X 1.5” X 36” baluster with a single ½” bead in the middle, to go from square to round to square would a tremendous waste of time and material.

Am I missing something or is there a work around to fool Vcarve and maybe bypass the rounding tool path

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

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You can set up the job as a rotary job with the XY datum position using a 5 inch offset. It won’t start rounding until it’s past 5 inches of the pommel.
The rounding toolpath is really just a convenience to convert a square to a cylinder. Certainly a good way to start, but you could also use rotary roughing toolpaths to start the curved surfaces. In either case, you’d want to start the curved toolpaths 5 inches beyond the beginning of the pommel.

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Thank you, I’ll give it a go. If anyone has a visual aid example that would be helpful.

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Screenshot (1)
Screenshot (1)2493×1587 376 KB

This is a 32 inch curved section which starts four inches past the WCS X0. Notice that the curved section could be cut with a roughing toolpath which would be followed by a finishing toolpath.