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BobHill
09-09-2006, 12:51 PM
It's a new way of designing for me, but slowly I'm starting to understand some of how Designer works. BUT... my problem is determining whether it's me or the program that does some of the things I'm finding. For instance:

1) Can you assign a line as a baseline that will not change position until your piece is completed (so you can then move the whole thing if you wish)?

2) Vector Tools causing drawing to go askew. See PDF file attached.

3) When I created a new MPC and even started redrawing a piece (above), and when I then Copied the Offset and set the numbers you can't think in terms of the copy menu as a whole, but have to take into consideration that the horizontal numbers will establish the horizontal numbers. See attached PDF.

John
09-16-2006, 12:23 AM
Bob, I messed around with this some time ago. What I did is draw the part in a cad program (Easy Sketch) so I had the exact angles and lengths of each segment and then draw each segment in the CW software using those deminsions one sement at a time. I didn't try nesting them, or off setting them. I think you would have to do some manual nesting and then offset them for the best use of your material. What I did find when I tried to cut the three different pieces you need, the 1/8 bit was to large to get good detail. It splintered the cherry quite easy. The other thing I found was the multiple passes required to get the depth you need was not held to a very tight tolarance. Some of the cut paths opened up as much as .007. In other words, the cut path of .125 (if everything was perfect) was as much as .132 which on the small scale you are working with made a sizable change in the piece being cut. I was going to try this again, after the latest version, but have not had the time. I would think there should quite a bit of improvement. In another post you mentioned going to a smaller bit. I would think that would help also. I would be interested in your results.

BobHill
09-16-2006, 07:56 AM
Thanks, John. I do actually do the same thing as you do, but do the initial drawing in CorelDraw, make it into a JPEG (not the greatest for exact measurements), however, then import that into Designer. Then I use the vector tools to do the drawing, first doing an eyesight drawing using the Connected line tool. Then I apply the angles and dimensions to those segments that the original vector was done in Corel. However, without being able to lock in a base line, when I get to some points, for some reason, suddenly the whole design will go akilter, as the image in the download shows. It gets sometimes overwhelming to correct at times, as instead of the segments going back to how they should, they go more astray. Note that although the angles are correct numbers on the tags, the actual angles aren't in some places. Crazy and weird way to do things (for me, at least).
Bob