New project with Chinese Lattice

[Steven Alford]

I posted in "Pattern Share" the need for a chinese lattice pattern. It is for a small Bonsai stand like the one pictured.
In my .mpc file how do I get the lattice work to remain as part of the piece? I want the background stuff to fall out but the lattice to remain as part of the stand. Still new at this and trying to get the software "rules" down pat.
I am going to assume I have to "merge" the pattern somehow. Any help would be appreciated.

[mtylerfl]

Use the outline tool, then create carve regions for the inside outlined shapes and click on the new "Pierced" checkbox to make the carving bit carve all the way through the board.

Couple issues I noticed on the layout...

1) The board is 1/2" thick and your carves are set for 1/2" deep. You probably need to go shallower than that (1/4"?) so you have a little more wood left behind the carved areas

2) You did not assign Bit Optimization: BEST to the carving elements. You want to do that so that the carving will look its very best!

3) Where the carvings are located, you have "cliffs" around each carving ("Cliffs" are 90° drop-offs at the edge). This will not carve very well and it won't look very attractive after the carve. You need to either apply a feather around the carvings to ease them into the surrounding wood...or...create a carve region that they sit within so that they will appear "raised" from the surface background.

Hope that helps and hope that all makes sense!;)

[Steven Alford]

Thanks Michael,
It makes since but I am confused on how to do it.
You say "use the outline tool"---on what in particular? The actual filigree patterns? And then tell it to create a carve region? Won't that make the filigrees disapear? Sorry, I have worked with the basics of this software but I am just now trying to do some of this in depth stuff.

[Steven Alford]

Michael,
I worked out everything up to the part where you mention "Pierced", I take it this is part of the new update to version 1.15, right?
I am still using 1.132, as it works perfect for me. I don't like to update to these new versions as they are usually riddled with "bugs".

[mtylerfl]

Michael,
I worked out everything up to the part where you mention "Pierced", I take it this is part of the new update to version 1.15, right?
I am still using 1.132, as it works perfect for me. I don't like to update to these new versions as they are usually riddled with "bugs".

Hi Steven,

Yes, the Pierced Feature was introduced in the new 1.150 version. I believe you could do virtually the same thing in 1.132 by creating a Carve Region and setting the depth to just a little over the thickness of the board. Since your board is 0.5" thick, assign the Carve Regions a thickness of 0.6". That should be enough to pierce-carve through the board without any concern for going too far and damaging your machine.

At some point, the CarveWright software programmers decided to eliminate the ability for a user to manually set a depth that exceeded the board thickness of a project. This resulted in the necessity for the "Pierced Feature" to regain the ability to carve all the way through a fairly standard 3/4" thick (or less) board. I'm only guessing, but I imagine that they did this because there may have been some users that set manual depths too far and caused themselves a problem. The Pierced Feature makes sure it is done safely without incident.

[Steven Alford]

Thanks Michael,
I did upgrade to 1.15. So let's just hope the bugs are few and far between!!
The pierced option worked well.
I do notice that once you outline a pattern you can no longer set the bit optimization, is that correct??

[mtylerfl]

Thanks Michael,
I did upgrade to 1.15. So let's just hope the bugs are few and far between!!
The pierced option worked well.
I do notice that once you outline a pattern you can no longer set the bit optimization, is that correct??

Great!

You can always set the bit optimization at any time. (Just make sure you have the pattern selected NOT the outline itself!)

[Steven Alford]

Yes, I see that you should not select the outline itself. That is what I was doing wrong.