Compucarve et all.
 

Does anyone have experience with the Craftsman CompuCarve or the CarveWright machines. I am wanting to trim a house project in the near future and hand carving, while fun and cool, takes way too damn long to even consider.

My dad makes lots of 'power-carved' signs and plaques. Maybe give that a try as a compromise. The way that he does it, is with a school overhead projector to project the image (if the item is large enough to warrant that) or just trace it directly onto the wood otherwise. Then he uses a standard router to route away the bulk of the wood with a selection of channeling bits. Finish up power carving the piece with a dremel and some smaller bits. He likes to come back and finish the inside of the carved area with acrylic paints to give some color to the design.

I don't know if this helps, or is the kind of thing that you are wanting to do. A limitation of the CompuCarve system is that I think the max board width it will accept is 12 inches. My dad routinely does 3 and 4 foot wide panels. Certainly the CompuCarve is going to be quicker, but it takes a lot of the creative aspect out of it and costs an arm and a leg.

My 2 cents...