Today I took my first steps cutting some scrap pine. I started off with a 2″ diameter circle then measured it. This is an acid test to check the CNC machine for accuracy and squareness. I used a 1.45mm four flute carbide end mill, 10″ per minute speed and cutting to 0.05″ deep.

Next I used CamBam to cut my wife’s name. That also went well, however even with the text 1.5″ high I was running into a limitation of the end mill. A small mill would have improved the detail.

Text cut into pine

Then I downloaded a DXF file of a horse and tried cutting that. Came out very nicely. The thin strip of wood left between the body and mane is thin enough to see light through it.

Horse cut into pine

Here is a video shows the horse being made.

For all these I used the same end mill and cutting depth as I did for the circle.