Wanting to expand on my first project by adding an inlay to my coaster but I’m having a hard time figuring this out. I’m wanting a walnut coaster with a maple inlay (1/8” thick) of this mountain range. The cutout inside the coaster looks good to me, but how do I toolpath the maple stock to remove everything except a 1/8 strip of this shape? The line shape is an open vector which I believe is the problem, but how do I close that while maintaining the 1/8” thickness? The offset vector option doesn’t wrap all the way around.
You will need to re-draw this to create closed geometry which describes the region which you wish to work with.
Not at my computer now to try but do you think I can just connect my original line (red dotted) and the offset vector (blue line) at each of those small gaps? I’m not sure how else I’d redraw it to match the inlay perfectly
Use the redrawn, closed vector on both parts.
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Post your C2D file here so we can experiment with it.
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I have two. The first one is the walnut coaster and the second should be for my maple stock
Coaster Crested Butte.c2d (1.1 MB)
Coaster mountain inlay.c2d (884 KB)
It’s somewhat tedious, but not very difficult, to convert the open vectors to regions that are 1/8" across.
You would need to do each vector individually, then union them to get the entire area.
First, mark the ends of a vector with circles that are 1/16" radius (1/8" diameter).
Now use a Polyline to complete the unclosed vector. Pass approximately straight through the circles and close off.
Use ‘Join Vectors’ to create a closed shape. Using that shape, do ‘Offset Vectors’ by 1/16", inside and outside.
Because of rounding, the offset vectors may not quite touch the circles. I choose to slightly enlarge the circles. The radius was 1.587mm, I increased to 1.600mm.
Now select the Inside, Outside and circles, and use Trim vectors:
Remove the parts you don’t want by clicking on them:
Zooming in, decide how you want to attach the circles, and delete the other line:
Now the remaining vectors can be Joined
Repeat for the other two vectors:
Attached as V8 file:
untitled.c2d (1.1 MB)
:
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This was great! Very helpful and it got me to where I was wanting to go! Made a couple small adjustments and now the simulation is looking good. I appreciate you walking me through this