American Flag Union

Newbie here and so frustrated. My husband purchased the Shapeoko XXl for me (mind you he had been looking at getting one way before I started doing any wood working) to use for my new hobby. I had previously been using a stencil to trace my stars and hand carving the stars on my unions. I used a link that I found in a previous topic on this page for the union which I was very happy to find. I changed the dimensions of the stock size to 15" x 10 1/2" which is the size of my union. Looked great when I pulled up the show simulation but then the stars were too little when I tried a sample cut. I measured the stencil I had been using previously and changed the size of the stars to W 1.3142 H 1.2500 which changed the scale factor to 1.0000. My problem is that there is too much space around the edges of the union and I can’t seem to figure out how to fix this. I think I figured out the other issue with one of my stars randomly being out of line (user error). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

A scale factor of 1.0000 won’t change the size of something.

Please post the file you are working on and describe what you wish to achieve.

However, 15 x 10.5" does not match the proportions of the Union. For those two dimensions the possibilities are:

  • 15" x 11.2383"
  • 14.0146" x 10.5"

You may have just fixed my issue. I am going to cut a sample union board and use the dimensions you gave me of 14.0146" x 10.5" and do a test cut. If it doesn’t work, I will be back with my file. I got the dimensions I was using from watching a YouTube video of someone making American Flags.

You could measure a real American flag and develop the proportion from there. :smiley:

See if this helps with proportions.
image

From site: https://www.ushistory.org/betsy/flagetiq3.html
Standard proportions
A Hoist (width) of flag 1.0
B Fly (length) of flag 1.9
C Hoist (width) of Union 0.5385 (7/13)
D Fly (length) of Union 0.76
E 0.054
F 0.054
G 0.063
H 0.063
K Diameter of star 0.0616
L Width of stripe 0.0769 (1/13)

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Thanks for your help Will. I changed the dimensions of my union and centered my stars. I ran it on a test piece of wood when I got home this afternoon from work and it worked out great!

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Thanks Guy! I changed my dimensions like Will suggested, centered my stars. I ran a test cut and then used the link you supplied to measure my star proportions and they were spot on.

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Just to make it a bit easier to create flags of many sizes, I produced a spreadsheet based on the “length” (or Fly) of the American flag.

PDF SAMPLE OUTPUT
AmericanFlagSpecifications2020.ods.pdf (91.6 KB)

OPEN DOCUMENT SPREADSHEET
AmericanFlagSpecifications2020.ods.zip (80.2 KB)

Thanks to @gdon_2003 for the idea.

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