Carving on Deer Antler

Discussion specifically about the Shark's bigger brother, the CNC Shark Pro

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wingshooter
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Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2011 11:19 am

Carving on Deer Antler

Post by wingshooter »

Another question. Could I carve on deer antler? Could I setup a jig say in rigid foam and expect the machine to do this type of work. You can see in the image I have started to carve out the text with a roto zip tool. I am getting to the point i cannot do this by hand and the man I do it for is a good steady customer. What about carving small detail such as as a dear head. I am playing with the software and it seems pretty straight forward. What I don't know is what to expect from the machine. Any help or advise would be appreciated.
Roger
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IMG_0703 (800x461).jpg

jeb2cav
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Re: Carving on Deer Antler

Post by jeb2cav »

Hi Roger - I would say as long as your jig holds the piece, then yes, you can do this. The one challenge with this might be that the antler isn't at a uniform height across the cutting area. You might be able to address this by either scanning the surface of the antler with a probe and using that model in your project (would require Cut3D with VCarve Pro - or Aspire by itself; and the Shark probe accessory), or perhaps eyeballing a given antler against a straight edge and if the variance is acceptable over the engraving area, leave all the letters cut height the same. If there is a slight arc in the center of the lettering, you could choose to program individual letters for a different height, then create a single tap file for all of them and run once.

I haven't cut into an antler, but have cut odd shaped material, and again, as long as the material is held in place, cutting is not an issue.

GARYR6
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Re: Carving on Deer Antler

Post by GARYR6 »

I do it by using a hard modeled jig, flatting the area then carving the shape.

jeb2cav
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Re: Carving on Deer Antler

Post by jeb2cav »

So you're ensuring the carved area is flat, so no monkey business trying to account for the surface shape. I'd say yes, you can do this. You may want to be conservative with your feed rate and bit depth, but I would think it is less challenging than cutting through corian or mdf. Be great to see some pics after you give it a try...

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Buc
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Re: Carving on Deer Antler

Post by Buc »

I'm saying yes you can carve on an antler. I didn't have an available piece of antler so I did a carve on my broom handle. I cut a .25" deep by .25" wide skarf cut in a piece of scrap. Placed it on my shark table. Milled the flat (1" X 2" pocket cut) with a .375" cove bit .100" deep. The made the text .4" high, rotated it 180*'s in the software. Calculated tool paths for both tools. Put the broom handle in the skarf cut of the scrap piece, secured it to the machine, and ran the G-code. Took less than 2 minutes machine time. The text was machined with an Amana 60* V-tip engraving insert (RCK380). Text is somewhere around .030" deep. I even stained the carved area to make it show up in the picture.
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Buc's Broom Handle
Buc's Broom Handle
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wingshooter
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Re: Carving on Deer Antler

Post by wingshooter »

Thank You sir, That is what I was looking for. Have you tried to do images that small and how do they come out.
Thanks Roger

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Buc
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Re: Carving on Deer Antler

Post by Buc »

Roger,

No I hadn't tried carving anything that small, but since you asked, thought I would try it. The dog was talking and the wife was telling me it was time to eat, so I had a few distractions.

Buc
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3D deer carve
3D deer carve
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

Thomas A. Edison

The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday

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