Centering a sign

[cbradshaw]

If I am planning to make a sign that is say 2" high by 7" long. How do I know where to start so that the lettering will come out centered on the board. I will be creating the lettering in Corel Draw. Can you create like a text box with it already centered and then convert it?

Any help would be appreciated.

Carroll

[danhamm@abccom.bc.ca]

Carol, in coredraw make your page 48 x 96 in.
then draw your 2in x 7in border ceter it at 24,48 inches center in your corel page, put in your text
remove your border, convert to curves, ungroup,
then combine, export to whatever folder you use,
then make your shopbot file, with shopbot converter or vector, beter use a very fine font such as courier or a single line font.

[cbradshaw]

Dan,

Thanks for the reply. This is the first thing that I will have cut with my machine. I am planning to use a V bit is that okay or should I use something smaller for making the name plate?

Also your response says to center my border at 24,48 does that mean that I should center the board I am cutting at 24 also? I'm not quite sure how to tell my machine where I want it to start from.

Thanks for your help,

Carroll

Tha

[rgengrave@aol.com]

Carroll I made you a movie on how to do it

Go here and at the bottom of the page you will see
Carroll Coreldraw movie, just click and download,

http://66.68.112.6/sample.htm

Ron

[danhamm@abccom.bc.ca]

No, Carroll your 2x7 piece of wood will be at 0,0
on your table, what happens with corel draw is that 0,0 is in the center of your table when you
export the file.

Ron's video shows how to size the table,make a
outline for your text and remove the outline,
some things he omitted because of video size
was that you have to covert your text to curves,
ungroup them then combine them they cut better then. as to your "V" bit yes but because your
working with a very small size keep your "Z"
real shallow..also in coredraw you can space the letters farther apart to get room to cut, you
highlight the text with your pick tool then on the keyboard use "control T" and a text box will appear..Have fun..

[rgengrave@aol.com]

Dan I did not add the Convert to Curves because you coverd that, I just showed where and how to set the material to be able to cut to 0,0 and be centered.

I can compress a 5 minute video 35mb into a 5-6 meg files, lot less download time that way, now for the shopbotters that have cable or dsl, I have 50+ mb movie files that show the complete step from a to z, and can be dowmload in seconds, but since there are many with 56k modems I try to make them short for less download time.

I just posted some movies on how to use Artcam and Signlag on the server, working on milwizard now.

Ron

[cbradshaw]

Ron and Dan,

Thanks for all your help.

I have now cut my first sign!!

Thanks again,

Carroll