Repeating Designs

[JamesB]

Recently I added a repeating design to the Vector Art 3D website and a corner piece to match. Using VA3D machinist and VC Pro parts like the ones in the image attached can be made form these individual components. Tomorrow I will add a tutorial video to this thread to show how to do this.

I am interested though if this type of repeating part would be useful to Machinist/VC PRO users? If so what kind of designs (egg and dart etc.) would you like to see? Thanks in advance for any feedback.

[js11110]

Just curious, but I notice that the images above are comprised of "12 inch repeats". Are you governed by 12 inch lenghths? What happens if you want a 9 inch border? Would you have to resize the pattern? Or could you break it up into say 1" pieces?


Jason

[JamesB]

I guess these are some of the things that I need to think about so your questions are good ones. At present it is scalable so that at 12 inches long it is 4 inches wide (I think) so if you made it 9 inches long it would become 3 inches wide. It would be possible for me to make smaller pieces I guess, say a single repeat of the pattern but it would be more work to assemble the pieces in VC Pro. I'll have to have a play and see what might work best. I assume for straight molding a 12 inch piece would work OK? Please keep other feedback coming.

[dighsx]

This might not be do-able but what about if you bought a pattern and you got it in a few sizes. Like a 12, 6, 3 and a single?

[CRFultz]

This might not be do-able but what about if you bought a pattern and you got it in a few sizes. Like a 12, 6, 3 and a single?

I agree, i would be more inclined to buy a 3d design that I could use on different size projects and stitch it together.
In reference to a frame, I fit the design on what hardwoods are available. years ago it was the other way around because any size hardwood could be purchased anywhere.
A 1 inch block and a corner that could be stitched and scaled would catch my consumer eye.
Also a continous run of a flowers on a vine in a corner block are a big seller for me...a 3d design of the same would be nice.
I have purchased quite a few of this type from your website so a 3d design would be a nice addition.

Chuck

[Rcnewcomb]

We have had demand for the types of designs listed below. These are from Enkeboll Designs.
http://www.enkeboll.com/

The boards are 1.5" thick and come in 8 foot lengths. The cabinet shops in our area are paying about $385 per board for these. These require essentially no sanding when they are received by the cabinet shops. So far we haven't been able to carve anything that has the same impact with as good a finish.

The cabinet shops in our area would love to buy smaller pieces instead of 8 foot lengths. And since we only have a 4 foot table we would prefer to carve something shorter. They would also prefer to provde the wood so that a cabinet, including the carving, is made out of matching wood.

[mark296]

Rcnewcomb, Thank you for the link. That is some of the best line art I have seen.

[mark296]

These require essentially no sanding when they are received by the cabinet shops.

Is it possible to carve something like that without sanding it, or do they have a special finishing tool.

[Rcnewcomb]

When you look at the material from Enkeboll you can see tiny cross-grain scratches from sanding or some other surface preparation (nylon brushes?) They are obviously doing something to get rid of the the router-bit swirl marks. I'm just not sure how they do profile sanding without wearing away the sharp corners of the designs. But I suppose that at $40/ft they could afford to pay a lot of people minimum wage to hand sand these things.

[JamesB]

Sorry about the lack of reply on this post. I had done a video to show the repeating models in VCPro and Machinist before my daughter was born but that got waylaid last week. Anyway Brian has kindly agreed to host it as it was too big for the forum. So if you want to look at it you can download it from here: http://www.vectric.co.uk/VA3D/files/repeat.zip - it is about 5.6Mb.

In order to view the video you will need to unzip it and also to have the TSCC codecs installed on your PC - you can download them from here: http://www.techsmith.com/download/codecs.asp - go to Download TSCC Codec and install the file on your PC and all should work fine. The video is about 8 minutes long and shows toolpathing the parts in Machinist then importing them and positioning them to make a border (as in the images above) - this is mainly for reference for those interested in the interaction between the programs.

As far as smaller lengths for these designs (3, 6 ,9 inch etc.) I will have to mull over how I could support this on the site. Perhaps It would make more sense for me to do 4 inch or 6 inch instead of 12 as the tile which could then be made into sensible lengths which even if a few inches longer could be trimmed to size without having to machine an extra foot.

Rcnewcomb - Enkeboll designs are very nice but we would never be prepared to plagiarise their work. I agree though that the traditional designs are a good start for ths type of thing and I will plunder my own resource library (Vector Art 2D and about 1000 architectural photos taken in Europe) to come up with some more repeating designs for the site. The other thing that can be done is custom designs for your customers from a sketch or photos - I am happy to produce your own designs exclusive to you which your customers can offer as a high end choice to their customers.

Enjoy the video and now I am back to work I hope to be more reponsive on here again. Cheers, James

[Rcnewcomb]

The Enkeboll designs were provided as a frame of reference. Their works are copyrighted and I respect intellectual property. These are what my customers are using.

Useful repeating designs would have the following characteristics:
1. Vine and branch designs are used most often in our area
2. The design is scaled for carving onto 4/4 and 6/4 material from 2 to 8 feet in length and 4 to 8 inches in width
3. I should be able to rough cut and finish pass an 8 foot section in about 3 hours of machine time

My customers are looking for a local source for this type of carving because:
1. they want to buy a design in less than an 8 foot length
2. they want the design carved in wood that they supply that matches the rest of the project.


BTW, the Chicago Art institute has a section dedicated to architectural adornments. It is amazing to look at some of the pieces and remember that they were done without power tools.

[JamesB]

Thanks for the feedback - good points well made. I will try to add some more designs in the coming weeks. I would say that making an 8ft. section in under 3 hours would be a tall order (if you wanted really good detail and finish) but I guess only maching tests would tell that. Cheers, James

[Rcnewcomb]

I would say that making an 8ft. section in under 3 hours would be a tall order

In examining some other designs what I noticed is the following:
1) The area clear around the design was done with a 1/4" end mill (I took a 1/4"bit and followed along the design and the 1/4 bit fit perfectly into all the outside nooks & crannies)
2) The main design was made with a large ball nose bit - perhaps 1/2"
3) fine details were carved with a 60 degree v bit. (again I traced with a 60 degree bit which fit perfectly into each detail slot both for width and depth)

So it appears that using larger bits for the bulk of the design and then using a v-bit just for details is good technique for turning out a nice design with a shorter machine time, at least in the pieces that I've examined from other manufacturers.