What tool path strategy do you suggest?

[Anonymous]

I am having difficulty getting this geometry to tool path. I have tried several different toolpaths including 2D and 3D contour, ramp, horizontal, 2D pocket. The resulting tool paths are nothing like the model. I'll attach some screenshots to illustrate. The model is the heel/tenon portion of an electric guitar neck.

[seth.madore]

Could you share your file?
File > Export > Save to local folder, return to thread and attach the .f3d file in your reply

[Anonymous]

I attached the file.

[seth.madore]

I'm not seeing those toolpaths in any of the setups. It's hard to diagnose what the intent is without seeing some of the attempt

[Anonymous]

No I deleted them all as they were useless. What I'm looking for is for someone who is more experienced to look at that geometry and tell me how they would go about creating the tool paths. Which tool paths would you use and what face, edge, etc would you select? I have tried all kinds of combinations but keep coming up with all this weird stuff as shown in the screenshots.

I understand to effectively machine this geometry on a 3 axis mill there will need to be separate setups. The side "cheeks" of the tenon will each need to be machined separately with the stock rotated so each cheek is facing up, then the stock inverted to machine the bottom area. Then the "step" part at the end of the tenon.

The latest thing I have done on the file is to create a sketch on one of the tenon cheeks with the idea of just creating tool paths from sketches and ignoring the 3D model altogether. That is what I had to do to tool path the channels you see on the top surface of the guitar neck. Those are the truss rod channel and two channels for carbon fiber reinforcement. I was getting nowhere with those too until I just used the sketches and hid the model.