Brainteaser? How to approach this...

[CNCweed]

Hi all,

I have a slichtly bended (like an arc) square piece of wood of 100mm by 100mm and 5mm thick. I want to cut a shape out of this with a cnc router and the cut has to be in one go along the edges of the drawing, so not several times back and forth as often 3d shapes are cut out.

What I do now: I made my drawing 2d in Inkscape and imported it as a pdf in Rhino 3d, then I import it as a dxf in Artcam where I generate a Gcode which I import in Mach3 which drives my router.

What I would like to improve:
1. the drawing is still in 2d, so projected on the bended wood means a larger result than wanted. But if I bend it to 3d for example in Rhino, than it seems that I do not have the option to cut it out in one go anymore. What are my options?

2. Can I simplify this proces as I use quite some programs to get to the result?

Thanks, Ivo

[grahamshere]

How come you don't just use artcam for every thing?And use mach3 for driving the machine. If the wood is only 5mm thick then one finish pass should be ok with out ruffing it first.Is the wood bent on purpose or that's just what you have? If you want to flatten it try clamping it to something flat for a while, it may straighten out for you. Works for me sometimes. Graham