Quote Originally Posted by liquidguitars View Post
Side note: I always make designer layout to include the end blocks for my jigs and never as small as possible I just can not see any advantage making the design small. This is probably why I do not produce my guitars patterns as that seems to be to radical for users. This jig reflects longer is better not unlike my sleds I make. Nice work!
Designing a layout larger (which includes the sled and/or tails for staying under the rollers) is fine. Some folks prefer to do that, and pretty much everyone using a sled SHOULD design the layout larger (i.e., sled jig size) so they can visually position their components within the carving area identical to the sled.

However, in other software like ArtCAM and Aspire, you do NOT want to design a layout in an area any larger than absolutely necessary to contain all the components. The reason is the way many CAM programs handle their resolution of 2.5D models in a layout. The pixel resolution is spread over the entire design surface - not just in a model component itself. A common mistake folks make when first starting out is to design their project layouts over a surface area equal to the entire cutting area of their machine. For example, let's say you have a machining area of 4' x 4', but your project is only 12" x 12". If the layout is put on a 4' x 4' area, the resolution of each model within that area is reduced far below what it was originally designed at. This is because the project is covering only 1/16" of the total area of the 4' x 4' layout.

I've seen folks design layouts with dimensions of a full 4' x 8' sheet of plywood and place a single (small) component/model in that area. Of course, they post on the appropriate forum asking why their carving came out all "icky and jaggy"! Reason - that small component doesn't have enough pixels to use in that huge area, so the model quality is greatly compromised (i.e., becomes very low-res).

Somehow, the CW Designer software doesn't seem to have the same effect when designing "larger". Perhaps it does and I haven't noticed, but since the tails are not adding much more to "take away" pixels anyway, maybe that's why we can get away with it. I don't know.