Vcarve elements jumping around

[john_l]

I'll try to describe my problem. In VcarvePro, I was laying out a rectangle to be cut from melamine. In the finished part, I needed a dado groved out of the rectangle to accept another panel piece when my parts were all done. I sized the first rectangle to 24x16. I then made another rectangle .75x16 and placed it on the first, aligning the edges with the original. Next, I select the first, larger rectangle and go to toolpaths to give it a profile cut, to cut it out of the sheet. Then I go back and select the second smaller rectangle, then go to toolpaths and give that one a pocket toolpath and set the depth of cut to .25 (for a 1/4" deep dado).

The issue is that when I preview the toolpaths, for some reason, the second dado jumps up about halfway off of the original rectangle, completely misaligned. When I click to view the original vectors, they are aligned correctly. When I click back to preview, they are wrong.

Any ideas what I did wrong?

[john_l]

Well, The problem was discovered last night. This morning, I closed the program and did the exact same thing (I think anyway) and no more troubles. If anyone may know right away what I did wrong, I'd still love to know.

[ryan_slaback]

John, don't forget to make the rectangle for the dado a slight bit longer. The router bit will round the inside coreners so you want to make the dad at least the radius of the bit longer on each side. Otherwise you will not have a square corner when you are done.

[john_l]

Ryan thanks. Thats a great tip. I didnt think of that and couldnt see that close of detail at the edges in VcarvePro.