Adjusting premium patterns

[donnalynn829]

When a Premium member “purchases” a pattern, it immediately goes to the dashboard. How can you adjust the pattern for kerf? I am working on one now where the fit isn’t as tight as it should be and I have no way to fix that… Help…

[evansd2]

Hmm, didn’t you just ask this about scaling? If not, I’ll dig up that thread, but I swear we just talked about this.

[eflyguy]

Probably this, but you can’t edit design library files, you can only scale them.

Need help with kerf

That would be awesome! I’m also new to this forum. How do I PM the file to you?

[evansd2]

Hmm nope, this was more recent.

How to you scale catalog items for different materials?

Hi there ! So I signed up for the premium trial as well and wanted to cut out the design of the month. It box is designed for proofgrade material. Living in Europe, I buy material locally in 3mm or 4 mm thickness. Is there a foolproof way to scale catalog items down to other material thicknesses ? I wanted to use the scale optiona and just reduce the whole design down to 91,12%, from 3,29mm proofgrade to 3mm of my material. I am not sure this will work with all designs from the catalogue. I ha…

Turns out it was a different person

@eflyguy

you can only scale them.

This should be enough for most things. You can scale very accurately using the precision rulers.

[donnalynn829]

So… not sure I got an answer here, but what I think I hear [read] you saying is that there is no way to adjust the kerf on a premium or catalog purchase to make slots and tabs fit more snugly. Yes?

[evansd2]

@donnalynn829

you saying is that there is no way to adjust the kerf

Not exactly.

@donnalynn829

make slots and tabs fit more snugly

This you can do, but only via scaling.

So the trick would be to know how big the slots are now, how big they need to be, and then scaling the overall size of the project to hit that desired slot dimension. It’s not very straightforward at first glance, especially getting the exact slot dimensions, but it should be possible to use math to scale things very accurately. The method is outlined for inkscape, but since the glowforge precision position interface also supports using math the process would be the same more or less.

[donnalynn829]

Ugh… math… but, I use Illustrator, not Inkscape.

Regardless, it seems to me that if you’ve “purchased” a file, you should have the ability to modify it to fit the materials you’re using, just like any other file you purchase.

[evansd2]

@donnalynn829

Ugh… math…

As for illustrator vs inkscape, I’m sure illustrator does the same things.

@donnalynn829

Regardless, it seems to me that if you’ve “purchased” a file, you should have the ability to modify it to fit the materials you’re using, just like any other file you purchase.

This sounds like a case to be made for exporting the designs you buy. Email support about your feature request!

[kelley1]

@donnalynn829

should have the ability to modify it

I’d like to see that as well.

In the meantime, Illustrator can be your friend in the math department. First, you can scale just by typing in the 91.23% (this is an example, not your actual solution…I’d guess your kerf correction would be closer to 99.3% or 100.6% depending on which way you need to go.). Or, 2/3*2.05 as a size (another example). Play around with a non-critical file in Illustrator, make some kerf samples and see what happens.

[ekla]

@donnalynn829

Regardless, it seems to me that if you’ve “purchased” a file, you should have the ability to modify it to fit the materials you’re using, just like any other file you purchase.

In this case you didn’t purchase the file, you purchased the right to cut the design as presented. Unfortunate, but it’s what the system is.

[ptodd]

I have used the process I found on Inventables that helped with resizing for different material thickness. I did test out a small cut of two pieces to test before running my project. Worked great!

Resize Projects of Laser Cut for Different Material Thickness

[kelley1]

Thanks for the link!