Freecad Inlay Failure

 

This is the model for the inlay

FreeCad v-carves on a shape centre line.  Like the diamond inlay in the previous post, the strategy here is to create an (inset) outline of the original path for the v-carve tool path to follow.  In the image to the left the green area is roughly the v-carve path.  The purple areas could use a clearing path.  The problem with centre line v-carving is the tool will run deep in wide areas and may not touch the edges at all.

 

 

 

Unlike the diamond in the previous post this eagle has multiple paths.  Using insets on all the paths will ruin the spacing between the paths.  The finished item will not be an exact replica of the original.  To work around this spacing problem outsets will be used on the paths when making the inlay (male) part.  Looking at the output of f-engrave shows outsets are the method that particular software uses.

This might be a good time to point out an alternate way to create an outset tool path without Inkscape .  In the profile operation deselect "Use Compensation" and add the amount of "Extra Offset".  Doing it this way has the downside of not illustrating the problem in the next image.
 

   In the image to the left the SVG has been mirrored to make the inlay.  The blue and red paths have been outset 0.029".  The green arrow points to the problem area of overlapping paths.  A bit of moving and shrinking of paths works around this issue.  It's a nuisance but not a deal breaker.

The inlay cuts look reasonable.  The profile paths aren't easy to see due to the uncompensated tool path defined in FreeCad.

 

The Base v-carve tool paths look possible.

This is a view from the bottom.

click to enlarge

Ouch !  Those hills can be scraped out but the gouges look pretty real.  Mission aborted.

Bottom Line

My FreeCad inlay strategies have some limitations.