Tennessee Cutout ????

[bw5then]

I have a Laser and a Friend of mine has a Carvewright. I sent him an outline of the state of Tennessee that was made in corel draw x5. He traced it on his software, we made a sled for the project. We made about 5 or 6 of these cutouts and EVERY one of them is a different size. We are needing them to be 6"x 28". None of them has come out to that size. Can anyone walk me through the process of the designing to the carving and help us figure out where we are going wrong.

Also, which type of file works best when importing to Carvewright Software, jpeg, svg, etc...

[cnsranch]

Could be a lot of things - how different are the sizes? If you aren't following the "7" Rule of Wood", and each board is being measured differently, and each project is being scaled to fit each board, that's probably your problem.

But it could be many other things.....

[Alan Malmstrom]

Ya, you probably want to make the board size in the Designer software one size and then when you go to carve it in the machine use a peice of wood that is bigger in both length and width. Then select no to use stay under rollers (even though you should use a board that is 7 inches longer so that it does actually stay under rollers), yes to center on board, and don't scale to fit or resize or whatever, and definately don't cut board to size.

.png is the best file type to use. It always seems to be cleaner when you don't compress the file.

[mtylerfl]

I have a Laser and a Friend of mine has a Carvewright. I sent him an outline of the state of Tennessee that was made in corel draw x5. He traced it on his software, we made a sled for the project. We made about 5 or 6 of these cutouts and EVERY one of them is a different size. We are needing them to be 6"x 28". None of them has come out to that size. Can anyone walk me through the process of the designing to the carving and help us figure out where we are going wrong.

Perhaps this article will be helpful...

ISSUE 18 March 2009 – Scaling and How to Avoid It!

Also, which type of file works best when importing to Carvewright Software, jpeg, svg, etc...

For a plain cutout (like your state shape), create a dxf of the outline and use the CarveWright DXF Importer to get a nice outline to apply the cutpath to. CorelDraw can export to DXF...I use DXF type "AutoCad 2004" when exporting DXF from CorelDraw.

Alternatively, import a good quality solid color graphic of the state (a high-res PNG format is best [if you can find one], as mentioned previously), save it as a PTN, place the PTN on the board, select it and click the Outline tool, then delete the PTN leaving only the outline (of course, then apply your cutpath to the outline).