Can anyone help me make laser cut templates for woodwork project?

[MariePierre19 (Courtney Miller)]

Hiya,

It was suggested to me that having my paper templates transferred to thin plywood wood would be beneficial for me in the long run and I’d really like to do that. I was also told that laser cutting the templates would also be the best way. I have no experience with laser cutting and am not keen on necessarily getting inducted since it would be a long time for that anyway, I was wondering if someone would be willing to help me out in getting this done?

Thanks for support,
Courtney

[mbg (Max G)]

If you can get the pattern transferred to a digital vector file and ready to cut, I can help with the actual cutting

[MariePierre19 (Courtney Miller)]

Is there a scanner at the makerspace? I could probably get it scanned and vectorize it. Because I need the dimensions to be to scale do you have any advice on how to achieve that?

[asander1 (Andy Sanderson)]

@MariePierre19

Is there a scanner at the makerspace?

Yes:

Colour Laser Printer / Scanner - Canon imageRUNNER C1325iF

Printer IP address has changed The IP address has changed because it kept being handed out by the DHCP to Wi-Fi users. It would be safer to use: “printer.space.southlondonmakerspace.org” so we can update the IP in future without breaking things. Details A4 Print, copy, colour scan and send functionality Colour and B&W output at 25 ppm Mobile printing and scanning support 8.9 cm touch and swipe colour LCD display [image] Canon imageRUNNER C1325iF - Colour A4 Laser Multifunctional Condit…

[mbg (Max G)]

create a mark with a known dimension on the sheet and confirm that it is the correct size on the resulting vector. Though last time I tried this, it actually kept the proper dimensions so ended up not being an issue

[MariePierre19 (Courtney Miller)]

Cheers, I will see what I can do. Is there a program you’d recommend to vectorize the template?

[Brendon_Hatcher]

If you have and can use Adobe Illustrator already, then use that.
If not, Inkscape is free and perfectly capable of performing the task.
If you decide to go the Inkscape route, I’m happy to provide some input on the scanning and digitising workflow.

I was at Japan House’s Carpentry Exhibition (runs to 6 July and really, really good). They have examples of the woodworkers’ templates for complex joints. They are on thin wood.