Leaving Tabs or Sprues in the Wood

I know, but I’ll just set it up once, name it and save it under User Specified brushes, then have it for other projects without having to re-enter it. (My memory isn’t what it used to be.) :slightly_smiling_face:

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It you use a brush it will expand correctly. when you expand the stroke it will create an outline of the path. If you expand the brush it will give separate line segments.

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If you set the dash stroke weight to something very small, like .00001, it will also expand correctly if you are using CS 2015 and earlier versions :slightly_smiling_face:

(edited to add “CS 2015 and prior”)

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Are you sure that doesn’t create a double cut line?

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:face_with_monocle:

Interesting - it appears Adobe has updated this behavior. (This true dashed line topic is discussed fairly regularly in the Adobe forums). The .00001pt expanded dashed line weight trick works in CS 2015 and earlier but not in the current versions (apparently it’s been a while since I’ve needed true dashed lines)

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I was trying to do this very thing for a gift exchange. I knew someone had to have done it, since so many game pieces and models are shipped in sheets with sprues. Finally found a game production company that gave detailed directions for if you wanted to do your own artwork. Their specifications said something like a 0.01 gap in at least 3 places around each art piece.

  1. So I went into my prepared artwork and drew a line the length of the gap they required.
  2. Figured out where I wanted my sprues. I had pretty rectangular artwork, so I was able to keep the sprues vertical or horizontal to make things easier.
  3. Inserted a node where the sprues would be.
  4. Broke the line at the node to make two end points.
  5. Moved the endpoints apart.
  6. Moved tiny line to inbetween the nodes (using guide lines to ensure the artwork didn’t get wonky).
  7. Snapped the endpoint nodes I had just created to the ends of the tiny line.
  8. Moved the tiny line to the next sprue spot, and repeat from step 3.

This is NOT how I would want to do it for a lot of designs, but since I only had one design, it wasn’t bad, and it worked just the way I thought it should.

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I might not be understanding exactly what you guys are talking about, but couldn’t you use the eraser tool set to .01 width to make the gaps instead of having to move nodes around? You’d have to break the outline in one place so it was a stroke and not a closed object, but then the eraser would make quick work of it. Anther option if you needed a lot of evenly spaced gaps might be to make one rectangle shape .01 wide, duplicate it as many times as you need and weld it into one shape. Break your outline so it’s a stroke, lay your rectangles over the line and use a boolean operation to cut the rectangles out of your line.

hk

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Something like this…

image

Computer controlled routers will leave a small gap around pieces to keep them from flying off and hitting you in face. You certainly can add them manually, we were just just trying come up with solutions to automate the process.

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