Scaling letters to "stack" with plasmacam

[aweston]

I am trying to cut out letters and stack them on top of each other so that there will be an even edge around the top letter (lower letter will be black, top red). The problem I have is when I copy and scale the letters it will not sit on top of the original letter and have an even outline around the letter. I know this may be hard to picture but I am hoping someone can tell me how I might do this. When I scale it down it will be shorter and thinner but I can not get the effect I want. I want to cut out one M and have another slightly smaller M on top of it. It sounds simple but is really frustrating. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[mdwalker]

Use the offset command instead of the scale command and see if that helps.

Danny

[weldor2005]

Use the offset command instead of the scale command and see if that helps.

Danny

+1

Only thing is that offset doesn't do so hot with acute angles.

[icmplasma85]

I agree on using the offset. Should work pretty well for most letters, but as weldor said the sharp angles could give you some problems. If they do, you may have to explode the letter and try to offset each line instead of the entire letter at one time. Then you may have some trimming and cleaning up to do, but it shouldn't be too bad.

[Shane Warnick]

I am thinking this is what you are talking about?

Offset Letters.pdf

(4.54 KiB) Downloaded 150 times

Offset Letters.pdf

(4.54 KiB) Downloaded 150 times

If so, offset is indeed how you get this done. The trick, however, in order to keep the acute angles intact and keep offset from chopping them off etc, is to offset OUT from smaller to bigger. I have found that it only chops the angles all to hell when you go the other way, or bigger down to smaller. When it shrinks stuff it can get kind of goofy sometimes. However, when it makes MOST things bigger, it does fine.

So make the small letter, or inside / front piece, then it "O" for offset, then type in the offset distance and hit enter (0.1" 0.25" etc), then HOLD DOWN CTRL and click just outside the shape or letter you want to offset to make it offset and copy bigger, click just inside to offset and copy smaller. If you forget to hold CTRL then it just does the offset with the original and doesn't make a copy.

Hope this gets you where you need to be.

Shane

[aweston]

Thank you for all the replies. That is exactly what I am trying to do. I have never used offset, I will try that. Again THANK YOU for your help.

[weldor2005]

Thank you for all the replies. That is exactly what I am trying to do. I have never used offset, I will try that. Again THANK YOU for your help.

Get used to it, Offset is one of the most useful features if you ever start designing structural items and not just art.