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I'm wanting to get some templates laser cut, got a few control cavity type things to do. Reckon it'll save time etc.
With a DXF, is there a standard/accepted way of showing what's a 'hole' and what's a 'solid piece' - like what is the cover ("male"), and what's the cavity template ("female" )..?
Maybe just add a rectangle outline around the 'female' part?
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Presumably you are drawing closed loops, so a loop inside another loop will be a hole, if you draw a loop inside a loop inside a loop though then ... you are too loopy.
Can you share a picture to show what you are concerned about
It's for guitar control cavities, so there's three templates; one for the cover plate itself. One for the recessed ledge it sits in. One for the deep cavity itself.
Basically if they cut out the cover plate from a sheet of plastic, how do they know whether I want the sheet, or the cutout part:
The plate and recess templates are very similar; plate template would be a fraction smaller all round, but superficially they look the same. But for one I want the plate, the other I want the sheet with bit cut out.
So I was wondering if there's a std way to denote which is which.
I might be missing something, but laser cutters don't mill out bulk, they make lines. Whether or not something is a hole should be a logical consequence of the arrangement of lines.
If you have a sheet of template material in a guitar body shape, and cut out a cover-sized piece, you'll have a hole in the body template that's the size and shape of the cover, and a separate piece that's the size and shape of the cover that fits into the hole. The sizes will be slightly different, depending on how thin the machine can make its cuts. The bit from the middle could be used as a template for making the cover.
If you want a template to use for routing out the actual cavity, then you'd need to make the outline that size (ie, smaller than the cover), and the bit in the middle would be waste because it's too small. If you wanted a cover template as well, that would need to be made separately. If you wanted to have both a cavity template, and one for the rebate around the cavity that a recessed cover goes into, you'd need to make two templates.
DXFs know nothing about holes - all they do is define basic drawing elements like lines, circles, curves, etc. In more conventional machining, you would provide a drawing showing the parts to be made, with dimensions and annotations describing the features you want, like holes, pockets, rebates, etc. The DXF could be provided in addition to that to make things quicker for the machinist (CNC programming software can read a DXF, but the operator has to tell it what the basic elements represent, which is info that he gets from the drawing).
Nomad
Nobody loves me but my mother... and she could be jivin' too...
DXF is just lines sure, but what I wanted is to tell the person doing the cutting which pieces are wanted and which are waste. The cover & recess example; in 'raw' DXF they look exactly the same, apart from a size difference. But for one I want the cover plate, the cutout part. For the other, I want a sheet with a cutout in it.
The equiv of the old annotated drawing might just to send JPG versions with colour fills. Or for the 'sheet with cutout' I make a rectangle around the cutout. Or I could just add DXF "text" to each part wanted. I just wondered if there was a standard way.
2D drawings aren't old in the sense of no longer being in wide use.- they are as current now as they have always been. PDF format is fine these days.
Nomad
Nobody loves me but my mother... and she could be jivin' too...
Cheers all. I'm using Inkscape, I can ask matey about hatching or can spit out colour-fill PNG or JPGs to pair up so he can see what's what.
Sporky that's true but how much smaller the cutout is I don't know, I'll ask him. Thought I may as well decide that with a separate file as there's no extra cost in it. Then I can buzz the plates on the router table to a good-fit size, hopefully no edge sanding to fit.
So I'm going to knock up a pile of DXFs, get a few build's worth done together.
Thanks all. Simple thing but I'm a fish out of water with it.
These are very good. https://guitarsandwoods.com/templates
I purchased a set of acrylic jigs from the above company, I do not use these in production, but I made MDF copies of them them. I use the MDF jigs for the production work. The photo below shows the acrylic jigs and the MDF ones I made from them. I believe the acrylic jigs were CNC routed. In the photo you can see the headstock jig of the telecaster that was clearly CNC routed.
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Hi Graham, interesting about the plates being routed, these guys do CNC milling & routing too. The inside/outside the line sounds like a fine plan and saves some faff, cheers, didn't know that was do-able.
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I then export as PDF which I "print" to the laser whose driver turns the lines into cuts.
Other cutters may of course require different input.
I made a load of acrylic templates late last year.
Laser is the better choice for this though. I send out for my laser work, I don't have room for three machines at the mo.
Thanks guys, all great info and much appreciated.
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Your life will improve when you realise it’s better to be alone than chase people who do not really care about you. Saying YES to happiness means learning to say NO to things and people that stress you out.
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The laser machines I'd looked at (for future planning) are built quite differently though - the laser tube usually sits at the side, and the beam goes via mirrors to a focusing head. For light cuts I could probably do something with an overdriven blu-ray laser...