CNC Dogbone Generator

Generator

How to Add Dogbones in Inventables Easel

Inventables Easel imports SVG, so use the millimetre SVG from this generator. Easel workspaces are frequently set to inches while the file is in millimetres, and that combination is where most scale confusion starts.

Easel also has its own corner-relief feature, which is the single most common way to end up with a double-cut corner. Use one or the other, never both.

Importing and checking the scale

Import the SVG, select the shape, and read the width Easel reports. It should match the output size the generator displayed, including the small dogbone bulge.

If it is off by a factor of about 3.78, Easel treated user units as pixels. Try the DXF, or confirm you did not save a stripped copy of the SVG that lost its width and height attributes.

100 mm is 3.937 in. If the generator was in millimetres and Easel is in inches, the importer should still convert from the SVG's physical width. Confirm with the on-canvas dimension readout rather than by measuring a screenshot.

Setting up the pocket

Easel's pocket operation needs a closed outline and a bit diameter. Give it both, using the same diameter you typed into the generator.

The outline already has dogbones cut into it. Do not turn on Easel's own corner-relief option as well, or the corner gets relieved twice and the pocket ends up oversized in exactly the place that controls your fit.

T-bones look like a bite out of one wall in the Easel canvas. They still cut as one pocket. Splitting the T stem into a separate drill cycle leaves a witness line where the two operations meet.

Common Easel problems

Pocket comes out undersize: you pasted a bare path into the generator and skipped the actual-width calibration. Download is disabled until that field is filled precisely so this cannot happen silently.

Corners look doubled: Easel's corner relief is on as well as the generator's. Turn Easel's off.

Shape imports rotated or mirrored: re-export from the generator rather than flipping in Easel, since a mirrored T-bone faces the wrong wall and stops relieving the corner that matters.

Getting the bit diameter honest

Easel asks for a bit from its list, and the list is nominal. A bit sold as 1/8″ is 3.175 mm on paper, but a worn or resharpened cutter can measure under that, and a 3 mm metric bit sitting in the same drawer is 0.175 mm smaller again.

Measure the cutter with calipers, type that number into this generator, and select the closest matching tool in Easel. The relief radius has to equal the radius that will actually be spinning, or the corner is only partly relieved.

If the measured diameter falls between two entries in Easel's list, define a custom bit rather than rounding. Rounding down leaves material in the corner; rounding up widens the whole pocket.

Checking the fit before you commit

Cut a single test pocket in scrap of the same thickness before running a full sheet. Drop the mating part in dry, with no glue. It should seat with hand pressure and sit flat.

If it seats but rocks, the pocket floor is not flat — that is a depth-of-cut or surfacing problem, not a corner problem. If the part stands proud at one corner only, that corner's relief was disabled or skipped; check the preview for a yellow dot.

If it drops in loose everywhere, the pocket is oversized by roughly a full cutter diameter, which almost always means the contour was offset by hand before Easel applied its own compensation.

When to use something else

Easel is comfortable for simple dados, box joints, and single-depth pockets. For nested toolpaths, tabs, and multiple operations on one part, Carbide Create or LightBurn will fight you less.

The geometry file does not care which CAM you pick. It is a closed contour in millimetres, and every tool on this list can read it. Inventables has no affiliation with this site.

Open the generator

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