Interesting: Drill toolpath uses any closed vector.

[FixitMike]

From Help-Help Contents: "Drilling allows the centers of selected closed vectors to be drilled to a specified depth."

Why might this be useful information? In the case of a cribbage board design, you can change the proportions of the entire design, say from a 9" dia.circle to a 8" x 12" oval, using the Set Size tool, and even though the hole vectors become ellipses, the Drill toolpath will drill the centers of the holes in the correct places. Just recalculate toolpaths after resizing.

It works with any closed vector, no matter how complex.

Note that the spacing between the holes in each group of 3 also changes. One could get interesting patterns.

[Tex_Lawrence]

Ok, Mike, that sounds like something to go with what I challenged Loonster with on his Gallery post ( viewtopic.php?f=5&t=35960 ).

I suggested that the cribbage hole path loosely follow the lake outline, but then I couldn't suggest a way to align the basically oval shape of the holes to the irregular shape of the lake outline (assuming, of course, that the outline is created with the Offset tool.)

Your tip is helpful in that once it is figured out how to make the hole pattern follow an irregular outline, the hole drilling operation shouldn't be any more difficult than with the original oval shaped toolpath. Thanks for the tip!

Now, how does one align one outline with an entirely different shape?

[FixitMike]

Now, how does one align one outline with an entirely different shape?

What I do.
1. Draw a curve representing the path you want the holes to follow.
2. Draw the drill hole pattern: 2,3, or 4 holes aligned vertically. suggested spacing is .15" between holes.
3. Group the holes.
4. Use the Copy Along Vector tool to copy 150 hole groups along the vector. Check the "Align copies to curve" box.
5. Delete every 6th hole group so you have 25 groups of 5. At the beginning of the pattern, delete 2 more hole groups so there are 3 for the start.

Add 10 columns of the hole groups for game scoring.

Note: This is for a pattern that follows a curve. If the pattern consists of straight lines and 90 degree corners, I put 5 rows of holes along the the corner arcs, and locate groups of 5 rows along the straight lines.

[Tex_Lawrence]

Thanks, Mike. I'm going to play with that and various outlines. Thanks!

[FixitMike]

Another example.

Cribbage board heart.crv

(372 KiB) Downloaded 77 times