Greetings,
I like the idea of wire binding covers. Plays to the strength of the GF.
I am a little curious on how you created it on a GF. When I opened the file, the SVG was showing 6x8" covers. No problem, just enlarged to 8.5x11. The issue is that my GF won’t actually cut to 11". It’s slightly (but noticeably) less. I can rotate 90 degrees and it will fit, but the grain in your photo is running left/right, which looks better than up/down that would occur if I printed it the long-way.
So, how did you get yours to print? Looking for the trick.
I created the file in Adobe Illustrator, so I’m not sure what program you’re loading the SVG into. I printed both halves on a single piece of proofgrade walnut, and the height was slightly smaller than 11”. I’m guessing because I’m not at my computer to check, but think that it was like 10.93” high, so not truly 11” in height.
in the end, that means you need to look into getting the wood in the right grain direction. in this case, you’d want short-grain, with the grain running down the shorter dimension. this could be harder to find, but it would allow you to rotate the material and cut the long edge across the grain.
or another option might be looking to find the material pre-cut (or precut it on a woodworking tool) to 8.5x11 and then you should be able to cut it since the holes aren’t actually 11" tall and the rest is within the cutting range.
The notebooks that I’ve created so far you can’t even notice that it’s a tad bit short. There isn’t much waste if you want to use proofgrade, but cutting other ply ahead of time would get you to the true 11”.
gotcha. Short-grain plywood is fairly difficult to obtain, so that option is do-able but not practical. I’m not exactly sure what the y-axis limits are on my machine, 10.9 sounds about right. I was just curious if you had figured out some work-around. thanks!
It would be nice to have them increase that size in the future to get a little bit more cutting area. I’ve done a number of projects that have been maxed out in that 10.89’ish height area. Another .5” would make a big difference for a few of the things that I like to make.
That’s a slippery slope. It just expands your ability to do some things which brings in new things that are just a litttttlllleee too big (again)
I started out using a little 10x14 bed laser and just needed a bit more for a Catan board…the Redsail is 18x24 and there are times it’d be nice if it were wider…same thing with the Shopbot.
I think our efforts will always expand to maximize the tools we have + 10%
Totally agree. My neighbor gave me one when he moved out, because it was too big and heavy for him to keep. I still need to get the blade refinished, but it works pretty darn well even when dull and chipped. I can only imagine how nice it could be with a fresh, sharp blade!
damn, that’s old school, and a beast. hand cranked?
the ones i have used have laser guides, some of them have an air table (for when printers are moving 3-4" stacks of press sheets), and then the two giant red buttons, one on either side, to press to make the electric driven blade come down.
