Tiling

Carving large projects can be a hassle, but with tiling, Easel makes large projects easier.

How it works

Tiling allows you to carve material that is larger than your work area on the Y-Axis. Tiling will enable automatically when your material dimension is set to be larger than your machine's work area. You can also disable and enable tiling from the "Tiling & Work Zero" tab in the top right hand corner of the Easel Project screen.

Tiling & Work Zero tab – Click to open the tiling options.
Carve the whole workpiece – Turns tiling off.
Carve one tile at a time – Turns tiling on (Pro feature).

The tiling menu

Once tiling is enabled, the "Tiling and Work Zero" tab drop-down will change to allow you to manage your tiling setup. This menu will allow you to adjust the number of tiles, the size of the tiles, and whether the tiles overlap.

1. Tile settings

Set the number of tiles and the length of each tile.

2. Overlap tiles

Choose whether each new tile's toolpath overlaps the previous tile.

Helpful Tip: Overlapping the tiles means that when switching from one tile to the next, the new tile toolpath will go over part of the previous tile. This will help to remove any tile transition marks. It is important to note that if you are using a V-Bit for tiling, you will not be able to turn off overlapping.

3. Select the tile to carve

This drop-down is also where you will select the tile you are going to carve. By default, the first tile will be selected. You can see which tile is selected by the blue CARVING text next to it. Once you have carved that tile, you will need to reopen the menu and select the next tile before continuing the carve.

4. Work zero

Each tile is zeroed from its front-left corner. When you move on to the next tile, Easel will prompt you to re-zero at that tile's front-left corner.

Important: You will only be able to start tiling carves from the front left corner. There is no center carve option for tiling.

Using tiling

Make sure you've entered the correct size of your material.
Select the tile you want to carve from the tiling menu.
Use the preview to double-check which part of your design will carve.
Follow normal carving procedure.
If you are Tiling a Two-Stage Carve, complete the roughing and detail pass of each tile before moving on to the next tile.

Carving tiles

Carving a tile looks a little different than a normal carve setup. When you first select carve, you will be shown a screen that asks you to align your material. For the first tile, this screen will ask you to move your material 0 inches, so you can set your work zero and continue with the carve.

For each following tile, you will be asked to align your material by moving it a specified distance along the Y-Axis. This distance is always measured from the start point of your first tile, not from where the previous tile ended.

Important: Even small deviations in the squareness of your CNC or material can result in tile carves not lining up perfectly. Square carefully!

Prepping your material

Use material that can be aligned and shifted easily (straight left edge recommended)
Create a guard to slide material against. A 48" level can be used as a guide.
Reuse your last work position in the carve walkthrough when carving your second, third, etc. tiles