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Although I've done a lot of experiments, and some cut out parts now, this is my first attempt at an "art" piece. I've included a photo of it and the MPC for those who might like to make one too. It's a Gothic Cross made from Designer Pattern Library (Compositions, Gothic. I also made a cutout path which worked very well to cut it out of the 3/4" Red Oak I used.
Bob Hill
Tampa Florida
:D Thanks Bob, Way too Cool
Matty
Thanks Matty, my daughter needed a new cross to grace her new house, so naturally I thought it should be a rather fancy one. They haven't seen it yet, but I'm pleased with the way it came out. Now I have to stain and finish it with some satin poly.
Bob
Bob,
Very nice, and many thanks for posting the patterns. Do have a question though. Do you load the carve pattern and run the unit, then leave the board in and load the cutout patern to cut it out? Any help here would be greatly appreciated. Again many thanks
Jimmy
Jimmy, I am not sure what Bob did, but I have made several cutouts and you can have it programmed it all at once. The software does the cutout last, even if you put it in the designer software first, once you put on a carving or text the cut out will always be the last step. Somewhere doing a search I saw where there is a post stating the order the software will do things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmygee
Jim,
Aaron is correct that you CAN do the cutout in the same cutting session or do it as I did in this instance, with a separate program file. I've also learned a better way to accomplish the cutout pattern too on such a pattern idea (see Desk Name Sign Subject). When you program the cutout in the same carving file, the machine will stop and advise you to change to the cutting (vector) bit, so it won't carve the cutout in raster, but will do it in vector (plotting) mode.Vector cutouts doing do the cutting all in one swoop as raster does, but takes multiple trips around the path with each trip or cycle being at a deeper depth until it reaches it's goal cutting trough the board (or to your depth setting).
Bob
Bob,
Looked at your desk name sign, which is very nice. I tried to see where you did the cut out for it. Went through the carving order and also goofed around with the cutout tool to see where you placed it. Guess I am missing something. I don't see where you placed the cutout, though the pic shows that you did. But if I use your two patterns for the cross, first carve it and then leave the board in the unit, then load the cut out patern it will work, is that correct? Since I am still a couple of weeks away, at least of getting my system back I can't play with it so instead I am trying to learn the saftware a bit and planning some projects. Any help would be appreciated.
Many thanks
Jimmy Gee
Jim,
There is no "cut out" specifically in the Desk Name Sign.mpc because I used a mirror image. Although it appears that you should be able to combine a mirror image with the original and thus create a "closed loop", this is the "bug" in the software and it looks like it's joined when done th eproper way, but actually isn't. This is why I made each side of the dual image slightly gapped, so as to leave a tab. Otherwise when the cutting bit makes it's last pass, if it feels like making another pass (because the depth is set slightly below the actual bottom of the wood), it's likely to touch the island and thus make it go askew and get caught in the bit, which would not only cause damage to the work, but could damage the bit and other parts. Leaving the tabs allows this to be stable until all cutting is complete and it's easy to manually cut the "tabs" away. Hope that makes sense. But the cutaway is there (look at the connected line path and it's mirror's depth vs the thickness of the wood), it's just done manually.
As for the cross and using the two files, I did that to see how accurate that would be and thus learn by what happens so I can do other things where two files would be practical over putting everything in one file. Think graphic layers, for example, as the CarveWright doesn't allow layers as other software programs do, but because of it's accuracy in realigning, it sure will allow multiple files on the same wood, if the design of each file actually overlaps exactly (and if you design it in something like CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator, Xara, or AutoCad, and transform it properly into raster, it should_.
Bob