Now that the dust has settled, How do you like V6?

[Tim Massa]

Hi Kerry,

Yes indeed, material thickness is not what it used to be. We've used the closest material thickness to what we get from suppliers in our sheet stock materials library that we design with. Learned that thru hard knocks.

With regard to the tenon thickness, wouldn't that be determined ny the distance off the spoilboard of the machine? Once daylight value of the bit is set, doesn't the control know how far off the bed to raise the bit in order to create the tenon thickness?
I think that the same holds true for the mortise. The depth of the mortise is controlled by how far off the bed the bit is (on the Z axis) plus depth fit tolerance. Likewise the width is created by multiplying the material thickness by the construction setting thickness percentage and adding the fit clearance value. I can't see how any of this is critical to using a percentage. If I want a .375" tenon thickness (using a .375" compression spiral bit in the spindle) then all I have to do is type in .375" tenon thickness. Likewise for .25" or .5" tenon's. The machine will select the proper bit and have a minimum of tool pathing. Regardless of what the material thickness deviation is doing, that table bed is not moving anywhere.
Here's why I loath that tenon thickness percentage. We have .72 f material for ply. Get all your cabinets designed up. Figure out what percentage of .72" equals .375". Order material and the unit comes in with an average of .70" Now the machine is grabbing the next best bit. Usually a .25" spiral. Maybe a 5mm. Whatever will work that's in the machine at the time. Now my machine run time goes up. Another problem is when you have .5" material (created as .463 in our shop) and we want the tenon .25". Parts are created in e-cab and the tenon thickness math is done (yet another opportunity for error here) and the percentage value is entered. Unit of material comes in and guess what? It's less than .463"! Now you using the 5mm if you have room in the machine or you have a tooling error to run your job file. You find that out at the time you tun your job file at the machine. All this milling seems irrelevant to what the material thickness is doing. It's strictly between the bit and the bed unless I'm missing something here.

I and the shop I work with, have had mixed results with changing the material thickness at the TWD. We create our libraries as close to the running averages of material thicknesses that we get from the suppliers. I'm not very confident that all aspects of the cabinet parameters that need to be changed are after adjusting the thickness at the TWD.

[Michael S Murray]

This is very interesting to me also, and I suffer the same problems as mentioned.
Maybe this should be another thread, or can some of the guys from thermwood address this here.
I am betting there is a good reason, but for the life of me, I don't understand it either..