Yeah, these weren’t lacquers. Water based I think. Where do you find the lacquers?
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I would make it in Fusion 360.
I’m told that there are plugins for Illustrator that give it more CAD-like mechanical drawing features (actually the whole reason I went with Illustrator in the first place was to use one of these, but I never got around to trying it). In the end though, it’s the wrong tool for the job and my preference is to invest in learning a better tool instead of workarounds.
One workaround, I suppose, would be to leave subtracting the connection points for the last step, and ensure you have saved a version of the file where everything is separate. Then you could go back and scale the artwork before repositioning and knocking out new slots.
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Gotcha. That’s exactly what I have in my .AI…My knockouts on a separate layer. I’ve done parametric modeling in Fusion 360 for 3D printing…not sure I want to add Fusion to a 2D workflow at the moment though. But seriously, keep up the excellent Illustrator videos. I considered myself a “fiddler” of Illustrator previously, but your tutorials have really given me the tools and confidence to feel like I’m really understanding it finally and can do anything.
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Once you have the file set up in Fusion360 it’s a snap to get 2D output. You can use the drawing feature to produce the laser paths and it will automatically scale when you update the model size. Then you output a PDF file from the drawing which the GF app can read natively, or import into Illustrator, Inkscape, CorelDRAW, etc for enhancements like engraving if desired.
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That sounds excellent. Are you aware of any good tutorials that covers this procedure?
I’m sure there are some tutorials on youtube covering the drawing setup process but I don’t know of any particular one off the top of my head at the moment.
I think the best/easiest way to show it, is if I work directly from your file and kick out some screenshots and a Fusion file. Do you mind if I do that?
Otherwise I did write a brief run-through a little ways back. It’s buried in a Parametric Box thread I shared here but here’s a link to the jump if you want to see it: Parametric Box with Finger Joints - Fusion 360 file
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Noice! I’ll check that out. Feel free to mess around with file!
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It is almost a sure thing that @mpipes tutorial is best practices but a quick and simple way to handle small adjustments to kerf is to install and use the laser dfx plug in. Just search those terms in the F360 store.
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OK cool! I’ll see what I can come up with, and if I can do it in 2D without needing to build a full model.
Or put the slots on a different layer. Then you can resize them all at once. If you scale them the same as the overall drawing they’ll be in the right place. Then just reset the width back to what you need for the material thickness. It’s a hacker’s version of parametric design (for tabs & slots anyway) 
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Ha! That’s exactly what I did!
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Very nice Will!
Best looking reindeer I have seen. Your wife has a good eye!
Thank you for sharing the file, and I hope your holiday season is bright as well! 
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I LOVE these guys…and thank you for sharing the file. My youngest grandson will really get a kick out of making these with me.
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Very nice!
Thank you! It’s so cool when folks share their designs. Really appreciated!
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That’s what life is all about isn’t it? Times like those. Glad I could help make memories for you and your grandson!
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OK! For starters here’s the Fusion360 file that goes along with the screen grabs below. I’ve eliminated duplicate items just to make things a little easier, those are easy enough to duplicate in design software or the GF app.
@Jules feel free to link this in the Tips and Tricks.
First step is to import the SVG file and set the desired parts to have parameters. This can be somewhat tricky with an “artsy” file that you’re importing so basically everything except the slots gets a “FIXED” constraint so they don’t move around and break the model. Then only the width of the slots get parameters that are linked to the material thickness and the width of the laser kerf. This is all done in the Fusion file above, so the slots are even kerf adjusted already. You just need to change your material thickness and if your machine/material get a different kerf value, you can change it easily. I put .008" for starters.
After the sketch work is done you want to extrude all the items because the Drawing feature requires solids to work.
Once that is done you go into the Drawing workspace:
Set the options for the drawing as shown. This is not super critical but ASME gives you sheet size options in inches and ISO gives you metric sizes. I went with ASME C-size sheet since it’s closest to the size of the Glowforge. If you know you’re going to scale an item UP, choose larger sheet sizes to make sure everything fits on the page.
Orientation should be set to match the view that you drew the model in the Model workspace. In this case I know I drew it in the TOP orientation. Sometimes I feel saucy and might opt for the front view or left. Whichever way you choose, Fusion will show you a realtime thumbnail so if you pick the wrong one it will be obvious.
Style should be set to Visible Edges
Scale MUST be set to 1:1 for this to work properly.
Tangent Edges should be turned off.
Hit OK here and you’re good to go. You can delete the title block and page border, just select and hit delete.
Now Save the drawing.
Now I’m going to flip back to the model and change the Scale Factor in the Parameters. You can see that the items have scaled up, the depth of the slots have maintained their same relative depth to the parts but the width of the slots is still setup for the same thickness of material, in this case I had it set at 0.125".
Now save that change to the Model. When you go back to the Drawing, it is still linked to the model and now it will show you an alert that the model has changed. Click the icon at the top to update the drawing.
Boom! The drawing updates.
Now you can spit out a PDF file right from Fusion. One caveat: It’s still a CAD program and CAD programs don’t care what you’re ultimately doing with the files. You’ll want to check them in Illustrator, Inkscape, etc to ensure line segments are joined and shapes are closed otherwise you’ll end up with either erratic cutting paths, or shapes that will not engrave properly.
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Thanks for the lesson Mike! - and the file.
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Fantastic! For those not ready to do this, I went ahead and made a much…LARGER pair of Reindeer. LOL
Wife said bigger, so I went bigger. I like this size best.
Enjoy!
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