Fit a blank and cut the board

Before you start

Two things need to exist before a design can be fitted:

• A machine. Go to Settings, then CNC machines, and select Add machine. A machine is the bed a blank rests on: its size, the tail stop and the struts. The default machine is the one the Machine tab opens on.
• A blank. Open Blanks from the main menu. Your blanks sit under Your blanks; the makers' blanks Surfbase ships are under Surfbase library. Select New blank to type one in from a catalogue, or Import a blank file.

Fit the design

1. Open the Machine tab

   Open the design and choose the Machine tab. The design's bottom and deck are drawn as the shaper sees them, tail on the left.

2. Pick a blank

   Choose a blank from the list. It rests on the machine's tail stop and struts, and the design is placed inside it.

3. Place it

   Drag the design, rotate it, or nudge it with the arrow keys. Every move updates the verdict and the readouts.

4. Or let Surfbase place it

   Select Auto-fit. Surfbase searches for the pose with the most foam to spare, or tells you plainly that no placement fits.

5. Read the verdict

   Green, orange or red, from the smallest gap on deck, bottom or rail against your foam margin. The readouts give the foam to spare at the tail, 1′, 2′, centre, 2′N, 1′N and the nose.

Find a blank that fits

Select Auto-fit all blanks to try every blank in your library and the Surfbase library at once. The list is ordered by slack, with the ones that don't fit at the bottom and the reason why.

Cut the board

From a green fit, switch to Cut mode. Surfbase places the blank for the top and the bottom cut, runs the cutter over the design's own surface, and writes generic G-code shaped by your machine's preset. Each file is recorded against the design version, blank, machine and settings it was cut from, so a board can be cut again the same way.

If something goes wrong

• Red verdict everywhere. The design is bigger than the blank somewhere. Try Auto-fit all blanks for one with more foam, or a smaller size from the size run.
• The blank won't sit on the machine. It is too short to reach a strut, rides over the tail stop, or is wider than the bed. Check the machine's measurements in Settings.
• No fit controls. A design shaped from an imported 3D model has no stringer curves to fit until you select Detach & edit dimensions on the design.