How can I 'bevel' or 'cope' the edges of a font?

[karossii]

I am making a name plaque for a friend, and he want the edges of his name beveled a bit, so that it looks less machine carved and slightly more hand carved. (In fact, he was hoping I could simulate hand carving with tool marks, chisel lines, etc.; but I didn't believe that possible and told him so). So, instead of squared corners, he's hoping for a bevel along the edges and base of the letters. I am attaching a picture of the profile desired; the paler pink is a standard square profile of the carved letters, the darker purple is the desired profile. Any suggestions?

Oh, and I do not have centerline.

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Thanks!

[mtylerfl]

Hello,

The "Draft" feature adds a bevel (select your lettering then go to the menu item Carving/Draft). You can choose from small, med, large or none. It is almost always desirable to use a draft setting on raised lettering so the bit "ramps" up to the letter (reduces chip out, which is primarily why the draft feature was added a couple years or so ago).

BTW - you can simulate a hand carved look sometimes by just using the feather feature, and/or creating a textured pattern for the background behind the lettering, etc.

[karossii]

Thanks for the response Michael... but the very first things I tried were feather and draft, both separately and together; in all three cases the preview of the raised letters still shows sharp, crisp, 90 degree corners... which is why I came here.

[mtylerfl]

Thanks for the response Michael... but the very first things I tried were feather and draft, both separately and together; in all three cases the preview of the raised letters still shows sharp, crisp, 90 degree corners... which is why I came here.

Ok, something's not right then. Please post your MPC so we can figure out what's going wrong at your end. I am assuming you're using actual text (not an imported photo or something like that).

[karossii]

Here it is... I got the designer view into several different very zoomed-in views, and added/removed feather and draft to be sure I wasn't just missing something; sure enough it doesn't alter a thing.

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[cnsranch]

Took a quick look - you made your Carve Region's rectangle "additive". If you eliminate that, you can get a draft - see the pic below - that's with a large draft.

Not sure what you were going for - you may want to simply outline the log pattern, perform a cut-out operation - that will save you some carving time, and place tabs around the cut out.

That help??

[mtylerfl]

Ok - very easy fix. I deleted the large rectangle you had around the whole project - still can't figure out why on earth that was there!

I applied a medium draft to the lettering, but you can choose large, if you want to add more bevel to the lettering. I also applied an outline, then a Cut Path to the plaque so it will cut out the part as intended.

Thanks for sending the mpc - sure makes it easier to resolve a problem when we can view the mpc. I attached the modified mpc for you...

EDIT: I see Jerry wrote a reply while I was writing mine. He's right on...my modified version does exactly what he said needed to be done. Right on Jerry!

[cnsranch]

You da' man, MT!!

[karossii]

Thanks guys! I first made that basic plaque a long time ago, when I really didn't know what I was doing (not that I am all that great now!) - not sure why that rectangle was there...