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Hi Im Joe i work in Canada and ive recently got a new job machining high end wooden stairs, im relatively new to mastercam although i have been through the mastercam level 1 mill course, my current task is machining floor returns, ( these meet the handrail and sweep down to the floor) the guy before me used a "surface finish parallel tool path" with a 0.02" stepover which ran the full length of the floor return. (fig 1) this resulted in a huge amount of travel time, resulting in a 4 hour cycle. ive changed the machining angle to 90 degrees (fig 2) so the tool would be using the radius more efficiently, and it created a great finish (for the most part) and reduced the cycle time to 2hr .15 mins however i still feel there can be more improvement. in my latest trial. i used three tool paths (fig 3) • the first tool path i used the surface parallel 90 degree angle ( from top to bottom) up to where the top starts to bend round. • the second tool path was more suited to the original method (lengthwise) and this was only the top part that bends around the corner • the third tool path was a surface blend just match up. the result was pretty good, however i feel im achieving this a "down & dirty Way" im hoping that mastercam is able to create a toolpath that stays perpendicular to the outside shape, (fig 4) i feel this would give the greatest finish. I have at least 15 different hand rails that i need to make into floor returns and its vital to keep the machining strategies consistent. i just feel we haven't fully optimized our setup yet. i would appreciate any help you could give me on this. thanks for your time in advance, Joe
