About 4 inches across.
Yeah your scale is part of the issue I think. At that size, your white spaces in the wings and such are only about 0.03" thick. That’s bumping up against the limits of things, and can easily be “overcooked” in wood if you engrave at high power like that.
I’m sure @rbtdanforth will have some practical tips, he does a lot of engraving… but the type of wood you’re using might matter too. Harder woods with tight closed grain structures tend to hold detail a bit better than softer ones.
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Good to know and I have some room. Personally, I liked just the outline better but my husband liked it filled in.
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(Oh btw this sort of highly detailed thing engraves really well on tile…)
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Ha. You changed the image from a PNG to a SVG. I caught ya!
I wouldn’t have guessed 4"… I was thinking like 1.5".
So, I ran my test with it resized to 1.5".
I slowed the head down… 300 speed, power 16, 170 LPI. I could have used less power for sure.
Remember, this is at an inch and a half. Oops.
The detail was there, it just needed to be brought out.
Hit it with just the corner of a 400 grit sanding sponge:
If I can get this with at 1.5", you can definitely do it at 4".
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Lol no I was definitely using the SVG for this one. I tried the png when I removed the white but it looked the same! I’m going to try it with your settings though. This is my third time using my GF so I’m still trying to get the hang of it. I like the idea of proof grade material but I make my own furniture and boxes so I won’t really have the option to use them as much.
I would go to gimp and re-look at all the colors and shapes. key to the idea is the parachute where you want the “ropes” to be light and the background black. It might be easier to see in reverse but no matter which way you view it, it will not look “normal” if you reach an ideal 3d engrave image.
I have found that in Gimp you can create another layer and use burn/lighten that you can blend into the background image and still keep the detail.
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Try the HD engrave settings if using Proofgrade.
All the advice will help for sure. Masking, if you aren’t. Slow the head speed down, slower is more “accurate”. And a bit of clean up.
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Would my focus height change it as well? This piece is .75.
In focus is in focus; Out of focus is out of focus, regardless of material height.
I assume you are propping the material up to get it into focal range. Are you using set focus?
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You would want to be supported to at least the point that the bottom of the engrave is above the 1.5" off the bottom under the crumb tray. you might want to try this ;
No matter what, you do not want to cut or engrave anything more than 1/2" off the deck of the crumb tray or 2" above the bottom under the crumb tray.
Beyond that, not all woods are equal and some will not cut or engrave much more than 1/4" thick material.
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Poplar will be very difficult to cut with detail without burning it up.
Maple, Walnut, and Paduk have held up well but I have not found others that did nearly as good.
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FYI - the image won’t look different between vector and raster - but the options you’ll get in the GFUI will change
For example - you only get 3D (vary power) settings in a raster
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One way to do this is to think of the design as a negative. Make the light dark and the dark light. Because you are beginning with the ground being the highest part and everything else getting deeper and darker, you then miss the highlighted part. You need to carve away and leave the foreground stuff higher and therefore lighter.
This post explains it way better than I can.
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This was the engrave at the top of my list and I needed to test out a new setup, so I resized it to 3.5 inches, 700 speed, 30 power, 170 LPI. Not bad!
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Niiiiice!
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That looks great! I tried it at 300/30 and 270lpi and it came out really nice but a lot deeper than yours. I didn’t mind the darker since I’ll be staining it cherry but I’m going to test your settings tomorrow and see which looks better with the stain! Thanks again!
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Very nice! I think people tend to think the higher the LPI the better, but for a lot of things I get really nice results at 175 or lower.
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There are so many ways to get there!
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As that only makes sense in a raster, as there needs to be a gradient from dark to light. If the raster is solid black there will be only one depth except at the fuzzy edges. The vector will also have the one depth, but with sharp clean edges.
Sometimes you need curved for relief carving, but photos where one side of a face (as example) has more light, the light side of the face will actually be higher than the darker side and look weird, where a raster engrave will just be lighter and darker as in the photo,
Each thing has its place depending on what you want to do,
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