V-carve in a catchall tray or serving tray

So I’m making some catchall type trays and some serving trays that are about 1" thick with a bowl cut around .5" to .75" deep. However, I’m finding that my v-carve bit isn’t long enough to reach the bottom of the bowl on the silverback. The z-axis triggers the limit switch well before the bit can reach the bottom of the bowl even at the depth of .5" and I have the bit just barely into the collet (enough that I’m sure it won’t come flying out) and I can’t get the to the bottom of the trays to do the v-carve. How are you guy’s making this work? are you adding an additional spoil board to raise the item up or are there longer v-bits? I’m using the ones from yorahome 1/4 shank 1/4" 60 degree bit. The router is down as far as it can go in the housing and unless I lower the entire z-axis assembly (which not sure I can do). The only other thing I can think of would be to add a second spoil board to raise the items up so the router can reach the depths needed. I see all these videos of people doing these carves but none of them look to having to be doing this, so just curious how others are doing this and are there I guess longer “v-bits” that have a longer “reach” for lack of a better term.

1 - I wont use v bits for large clearing jobs like that. The bits that YoraHome provides are just starter bits anyway. You will need to upgrade your tool selection as you progress.

2 - The unfortunate reality is sometimes you will have to raise your material by adding additional boards underneath. We are working on this.

3 - look into purchasing longer clearing bits, 1/4 endmill at 2.5" lengths and up, also look into getting some tapered ballnose bits ranging from 1/8 down to 1/32.

4 - when you do raise your material you are gojng to lose the abilty to clamp more then likely, so buy some double sided carpet tape. Holds well, only had an issue once.

I’m using a bowl bit for clearing, I’m wanting to use the v-bit to carve a design at the bottom of the cleared bowl area. I’ve used the tapered ball nose bits, but they take 30minutes to an 1hr to carve the same design that the vbit could do in just a minute or two it seems. for the bowl cut, I’m using a 3/4 bowl bit, it really needs a longer shaft as well as even with a 1" board cutting to .75" i hit the limit switch a few times which is annoying when it happens as I have to adjust the bit and then re-run the entire job.

I have 1/8 and 1/16 tapered ball nose, and I used the 1/16 to do my design since I couldn’t use the v-bit I had. But to do two carves of an image that was maybe 3" x 3" took nearly 2hrs. which seems a bit long, and think the vbit would have taken less time. I’ll see if I can find some bits that have a longer shank as well as look too see if I can raise the material a little bit. event raising it a half inch would probably let me get there. I was just curious how others were solving these kinds of issues.

Hi Tuendal. I just setup an extra 16mm MDF waste board 595 wide x 600 long, screwed to existing, then surfaced and put a grid on. I only use painters blue tape and medium super glue to hold everything down. Even sometimes I wish I had used 12mm as it is close to top limit switch when working on 19mm material.
Probably change when I next get some free time but it doesn’t take long to do and only about AU$4.00 cost

thanks for the info. I’ll probably look at doing something like that. I use the painters tape/ca (super) glue as well seems to be the most efficient and keeps the clamps out of the way.

Could you please explain the painters tape and super glue setup? I’ve never ad much luck with the blue tape holding anything. Thanks!!

Hi Jayhawk just lay strips of painters blue masking tape depending on the size of the carve on to your waste board and a corresponding strip on your carving material. I use medium superglue applied to the tape strips on the waste board then place the work piece onto the super glue. You don’t need much superglue. I usually have a couple of weights to lay on the workpiece to hold down while the glue dries for an 1hr hr. When finished carving just use a chisel or similar to lever the workpiece off the tape or waste board and peel off the tape.
You really only need say three or four strips of 50mm wide tape in a job that is about 250mm wide, no need to cover the whole area.

Thank you! One more weapon in the arsenal. :ok_hand: :+1: :smile:

Message me and I’ll let you know what has been extremely successful for me.