I'm trying to engrave a shape on curved surface. 60 degree engraver, simple 3 axis mill. If the surface is flat, engraving works like a charm! But when the surface is even slightly curved the engraving will not work at all. It's still thinking it's digging into flat surface which will result in perfect cut on shallower parts of the surface but way too deep cut on higher surface parts.
I tried "trace" since it was recommended, but I don't want to trace the line with tool center but trace inside the shape to engrave without cutting outside the shape. Again, this work wonderfully on flat surface (I just select some "stock to leave" to offset the tool radially and use axial offset to dig into my stock) but fails miserably on curved surface.
Here's the shape I'm trying to engrave. Simple sun with rays and a face:
The surface is curved:
Engrave will cut into the stock "in flat" = using just one fixed depth for every continuous shape/contour. This will obviously cut perfectly on right side of the piece but dig WAY too deep on the left side. The face would cut quite OK but the rays would not. Not acceptable.
(For some reason it would also cut away the center after engraving the face... oh well, it would not work even if it wouldn't:)
Ok, let's forget the engrave and try "trace". The selected contour looks perfect now, not a flat projection like with engrave:
If I adjust the tool axial offset, I can surely trace the path and it looks kinda nice:
But as you can see, it will obviously cut outside of my shape, since it's tracing the path tool center as specified. Ok, that's easy enough to fix, just choose sideways compensation, axial offset and stock to leave:
This works perfectly on a flat surface. But NOT on curved. For some reason it compensates WAY too much and results in a curly circle instead of following the line (offset by the selected stock to leave value):
How could I engrave my shape on the curved surface? Any tips are more than welcome!
