Laser Checkering

[Bert Kemp]

Just to make you nuts, check this out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZleOfiMd-dU

yep it did is that the real speed of the machine? wow

[Dave Sheldrake]

It's just something I found I was good at Mike, I never use it or do any of it these days

cheers

Dave

[Dan Hintz]

Chuck can probably do it a lot faster than I could, but I just started practicing on corel draw a few days ago, and I created the same checkered pattern that he has on the right, in about 15 minutes. It simply involved drawing a square, using fountain fill (F11), and then a lot of copy paste... It was quite fun actually!

Actually, it's even faster as you don't need to copy/paste... a single square is adequate to do the entire job.

[Don Corbeil]

Actually, it's even faster as you don't need to copy/paste... a single square is adequate to do the entire job.

and no hints on how...?
now I'm going to have to go look it up

[Mike Null]

While you're looking that up also look up power clip so that you can shape the checkering.

[Don Corbeil]

looks like some homework ahead...

[Chuck Stone]

and no hints on how...?
now I'm going to have to go look it up

LOL .. it took me a couple of minutes for that one on the right, but I was
also on the phone at the time.

From a single square .. I'd probably go to Transformations, Position and
move it over the same width as the square and Apply to Duplicate as many
times as I needed to. I know there's better ways, I just don't know them and
that would work. Once I had a whole line of them, then I'd select the whole line
and go down. Power clip to your outline...

[Bill Cunningham]

Simplest way is just draw the shape you need, and give it a postscript fill as Mike said above..
Here's some rifle stock engravings, one was going on a prize 3030 for a cowboy action group, the other two aren't checkering but serve the same purpose. These were done on a old single shot Mod. 82 Cooey pattern .22, that I bought for $8.00 53 years ago.. Done ten years ago when I was still in the 'nothing sacred' phase of my new laser..

[David Somers]

For giggles, I passed this thread and the cool video of the laser checkering process to my friend who is a gun smith. He was suitably awed by the speed of that laser. He did let me know that a typical rifle stock checkering job would take 8 to 16 hours depending on the skill of the gun smith. How does that compare with your experience Dave Sheldrake? My friend was curious as well since he is new at that and still at the bottom end of the learning curve.

I am also curious how much difficulty you have finding the right settings on a laser to get the 3D pattern done without burning the wood in the process? Cool stuff everyone!!

Dave

[Mike Null]

Dave

In the laser engraving business there's an old woodworking term that you might be familiar with when it comes to power settings on wood items when you don't know what they should be. It's called "sneaking up on it". Just increase the power in increments until you're satisfied.

Don't be intimidated by the idea that you're going to ruin everything you touch. You'll catch on very quickly.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Hiya Dave,

8 to 16 hours seems about right depending on the check tools used (and the area required), if it's follow cutters that tends to be quicker but single points take a longggg time and a steady hand.

cheers

Dave

[David Somers]

Thanks Dave!! He was certainly wowed by the laser doing it in that video. It was cool to watch that. I think he will continue to develop the skill though. He is in IT like me and really enjoys doing hand work when he is not taking mallets to computers and servers. Doing something that is not digital in your off time helps with the sanity! Kind of like my lathe work is for me!

Hope all is well with you!

Dave

[Bill Munroe]

John, I'm not at my Corel station now, but I believe all you do is select the smart fill tool. One of the options is for patterns, and one of those options is to create one. You have to have the image you want to use already saved and select it. Another, probably easier way to do it would be to take the pattern and copy/past it, then use the power clip tool to get rid of excess. If you just enlarge the original pattern, it will make the scales or diamonds bigger. If you don't want that to happen, you'll have to copy, paste and join the patterns until you get a big enough image to use. I'm sure someone more Corel literate than I could explain it better. Hope this helps. I've been playing with Corel and the laser for almost a year now. Using this thread and a little additional research, I was able to do this in a piece of scrap cherry.20140316_100759 (775x800).jpg Also, I would like to thank every one on the forum, your postings have been a huge help!

[Scott Hearn]

I know it's an old thread but I've just become enamored with CNC woodworking of late. I have a CNC background but it's been many moons since and I've done nothing with lasers but cutout parts from stainless and titanium sheets using a 1KW co2 laser.

Could an add-on laser to a Shapeoko 3 do gunstock checkering of various patterns? I plan on doing exotic hardwoods and would prefer not to burn the wood and still be able to see the underlying grain in most cases, but it would also be nice to have the ability to contrast like Bill Munroe's example above. Am I dreaming or can one get powerful enough laser on a really small router?

[Michele Welch]

This is what I love about this community!! I've been researching how to do a vector fill with cross hatching instead of rastering to speed jobs up and still get the same filled look, so I finally took the plunge and got Corel Draw just this afternoon. I was just googling how to do it and came here and bam, here's my answer. Now onto trying it out and seeing how it works for the application I'm using it for. Anyone use it for vector fill instead of rastering? Please let me know some tips!