Rest machining
Updated v2.4.3At a glance
- Rough big, finish small—a smaller tool machines only the material the earlier tool couldn't reach
- Turn on Rest machining in a 2D Dynamic op and pick an earlier op as the source; no re-cutting air
- The rest pass picks up at the earlier tool's cut boundary, worked around the part in order
- The rest pass inherits the source op's depth automatically—and you can still fine-tune it
- The viewport highlights the leftover material the pass will remove before you cut it
- A minimum rest width filter skips slivers too thin to matter; chain rest ops as deep as you like
Rest machining is how you rough with a big tool and finish the corners with a small one, without re-cutting everything in between. After a 2D Dynamic op runs, JetCad3 remembers exactly what material it couldn't reach — the tight corners and narrow slots a large cutter had to leave behind.
Clean up only the leftovers
Add another 2D Dynamic op, turn on Rest machining, and pick the earlier op as the source. The smaller tool then machines only those leftovers — no re-cutting air, no guessing where the big tool stopped. It's the difference between a fast finishing pass and dragging a small cutter over the whole pocket again.
The rest pass cuts with full knowledge of everything the earlier tool removed: its passes pick up at the previous tool's own cut boundary, entering with a single straight plunge in ground that is already clear and engaging at your set load. On a part ringed with leftover pockets — the tooth valleys of a sprocket roughed with a big tool — the op works its way around the part one neighbouring region at a time instead of criss-crossing it.
The right depth, automatically
A rest op finishes the same pocket the first tool started, so it has to reach the same floor. Pick a source and the rest op's Top and Bottom fill in from it right away — the pass cuts to the depth your roughing op cut to, not to the bottom of the stock. The inherited depth stays fully editable, so you can nudge it for a longer tool or a little extra clearance; change the source and it refills to match.
See it before you cut it
While the rest op is open, the viewport highlights the source's leftover material — exactly what the pass will remove. A minimum rest width filter skips slivers too thin to matter; it defaults to 5% of the tool and follows your tool choice until you set it yourself.
Chains as deep as you like
A rest op can itself be the source for an even smaller tool — rough, semi-finish, finish. Edit or regenerate any op in the chain and everything downstream marks itself dirty and rebuilds in the right order, sources always running first. See Backplot & auto-generate for how the generation lifecycle keeps a chain in sync.