Hello to all!
So I have this rocket plan. However, since it was free, I got what I paid for.
BUT, I had a friend give me a whole bunch of free acrylic in different amazing colors. However, they are 3mm thick. These plans have gaps (?) of 1mm. Is there a magic program somewhere that takes laser existing laser plans and can resize all the gaps to a custom size?
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There is no software that I know of that is going to be able to automatically correct for slots. It’s something that you have to do manually in your design software.
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You could try to shrink the entire design by 25%. That would make the slots 3 mm but the rocket would be shorter than the initial design. Or, increase it by 50%, cut out 2 of them and then double up on the layers for every part. I have not checked the dimensions to see if that would still fit in a forge.
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Don’t the gaps stay relative in size when re-sizing? Meaning my 1mm gaps would be 1/2mm if I shrank it by %50?
When I downloaded the design, the whole pattern was about 1" total, I could barely see it. I resized it just so I could view it. So when I have maybe a 6" tall rocket, my gaps are 1mm. Does that make sense?
Typically, I will pull something like this into Inkscape and use the ruler command (r on the Mac) to measure the slot width. Then use a percentage calculator to get the difference as a percentage. Scale the design by that amount and Bob’s your uncle,
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I have a way to do what you are saying but it takes a bit of work in inksacpe
Afraid of that. Gotta find that bored guy in India who built an app that does this…8-]
The design you posted is small. small enough that increasing by 50% would still fit on one sheet in the forge. Shrinking it by 25% would make for a tiny rocket.
Note: There seem to be some gaps in the nose section of the 4 small pieces ( top of the sheet) that will result in the part not being cut from the sheet.
Yea, free design. My problem with resizing till I get 3mm gaps is that I don’t have enough acrylic to make a huge rocket.
a 4 mm gap would shrink to 3 mm if you reduced the size of the part by 25% (or in inkscape scaled the part by 75%.) Your 3 mm thick material would not change so it would fit nicely.
I have fixed the issues with those 4 tanks and created 2 versions, one for 3 mm and one for 6 mm (or double the 3 mm parts).
6 mm version:
3 mm version:
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That is amazing! When I get back from my honey-do chores, I will give it a run!
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I say “Boom - Bob’s your uncle” all the time and no one ever gets it. They give me weird looks. Not going to stop me however!
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Here’s an equation for fixing the slots on any pattern. Measure the thickness of your material and subtract the kerf width – that’s your desired slot size (DS). Now measure the width of the slots in your pattern (S), and also make note of the total pattern width (P).
Multiply DS * P, then divide by S. That’s the width you need to scale the pattern to in order to have your desired slot size.
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Excellent!
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I’m tempted to be a bored guy in California and try to build such an app 
But sadly I can be both bored, and incredibly busy 
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Or put another way:
Which is also essentially how @shogun was saying to do it with percentages. It’s all the same method.
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I had to look that up, because I had never heard it before. so for others like me/
“Bob’s your uncle” is a phrase commonly used in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries that means “and there it is” or “and there you have it” or “It’s done”. Typically, someone says it to conclude a set of simple instructions or when a result is reached.
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I had to look it up too. If I had only read the rest of the thread, first, it would have saved me the search. But my curiosity was piqued. Lol.
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Thank you for saying “piqued” and not “peaked.” That could have ruined my whole day. 
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Peak pique should you have peeked in and seen “peaked”, not “piqued”.
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