Scaling Up a Carve into two halves

[karossii]

I designed a plaque/sign, which is mostly vector carving, for an 11"x11" work piece. The sign itself is 10"x10", and I had planned to have a board which is 18"x11.25" when I carved it, to allow it to stay under the rollers, etc.

I have since decided I would like to roughly double its size. Of course, there's no way to carve a 20"x20" sign in one board.

So; would I need to redesign it from scratch?

Or is there a fairly easy way to scale all vectors up, let them hang halfway off the board so only half is carved, and then copy/paste that and do the same for the other half?

Some more info; it is a circular sign

[bergerud]

I remember something strange happening when vectors go off the board. It may be only that the machine cuts into the space around 1/2" off the sides of the board.

If you have the 2d tools, you could use the trim tool to split the vectors in half.

If you post it we could play with it.

[karossii]

Here's the .mpc

I tried selecting all items and scaling it via the yellow arrows; but that gives me some very odd rotation and distortion; even after I triple checked that there was no centering/attachments.

[bergerud]

Try this and see if the scaling is better.

[aokweld101]

I played with it, hope this might be helpful.

[bergerud]

I just noticed after I uploaded the mpc that the outer circle is mirrored. I should have unmirrored it and added the cut path to the original circle.

[Ton80]

There are issues with vectors that overhang the edge of a project board. All I use my machine for 99% of the time is running carves that cross over two project boards which represent cabinet doors. My projects are all scaled up to 16-20" wide. You will have issues where the machine will attempt to carve the vectors that overhang your boards ( the area that will be carved on the second half ).

You have two choices based on my experience. Either way you choose, save your project as a left and right half. Or top / bottom, whatever makes more sense given your layout.

1. split all those vectors up into distinct halves so there is nothing overhanging. This will require very careful set up on your part to assure everything lines up. It sounds like you are using the drawing tools within Designer to set up your vectors so that would mean you need to place a vertex point at the true center where you will place your project across your glue up point. This can be a finicky process but it works.
2. You can just overhang those vectors. This is the easiest way but you need to load a board and give yourself at a minimum 3/4" extra width with the board you load verses the size you specify in the board settings. This is because the machine with carve all up and down the side of the board where the vectors are hanging off. Tell the machine to center the project on the wider board when it's running through it's measurements. If you can, I would load a board that is 1" wider than you will end up with once you trim in out in the shop.

I am still using 1.187 but others confirmed a while back that the machine still behaves this way. If you want to run a quick test to see what I am talking about and if this condition still exists with 3.x then draw a large diameter circle and place the center on the edge of your project board and then carve it. If this condition does exist, you will see the machine carve a vector straight down the edge of the project board on the same side where your circle is overhanging.

**edit**

I looked at your mpc and you are using centerline text. The "NO SOLICITING" that goes across the middle will just have to overhang as there is no way to split that up without overhanging a project board. You will need to plan this project using option 2. I would still split your large circles into halves and delete as much as possible that overhangs. It just wastes carve time by having that extra stuff hanging off the board. You can delete the inner cutouts that will overhang off the board.

[zan29]

The best way for me to do this is make a pattern out of it first, if you can, than use the clipping option to cut the pattern in 2 halves and carve. That's how I do it and always had good results.

[bergerud]

What do you mean "clipping option"? When a pattern hangs off the board, the overhang is just gone isn't it?

[zan29]

Let me make something to show you.

[zan29]

Ok so if you look at my pattern, only half of it is showing. If you move the rectangle to the right, than the other half is showing. So what I do is make a pattern of each half, scale if necessary and carve them separately.

[bergerud]

I see. That is cool. Clip Inclusive. You can also hang a pattern off of the board. When you make another pattern from it, the part off of the board is gone.

[aokweld101]

I haven't done a two board carve but I have read the tutorial for my own interest, could some one look at it and assure karossii that it is all right to use. I did the pattern from scratch, The ideal carve would be to turn the boards, I didn't figure that out..

[karossii]

Well, so far none of the suggestions, or my attempts, are working out as I would like.
I even spent some time learning designer 3 (just upgraded), and not having any more luck with it than I was with 1.

Now, by starting over, I can get it split in half exactly without much fuss. But then I have to worry about lining up two halves of centerline text.

I thought to split it off-center, so that the entire center region is on one side of the carve. This would mean a slightly smaller sign overall (a total of 16" or so, instead of almost 20")...but that would be okay. Except I just can't make it come out as well as I would like it to. I will move on for now, make some other new projects, tweak a few other old projects, and learn designer 3 as well as I can... THEN maybe I can get it done right.