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View Full Version : mirrored fitting text to path doesn't line up



Tom Delaney
04-07-2009, 8:45 PM
:confused:I am trying to engrave the bottom of a wine glass (it is tight to fit vertically but it makes it... barely). I started with three concentric circles (from outside to inside) (1) was the outside of the bottom of the glass (2) was the top rim of the glass (3) was the stem part of the glass where it meets the bottom of the glass. Engraved the three circles onto a piece of 1/4" plywood. Sounds logical so far.

I then took the text "Saratoga National Golf Course at 6:30 in the evening" and converted to path of the second circle and mirrored it.

I then (I've learned from trial and error --- more error!) put painters tape on the bottom of the glass and let er rip! The engraving is about at the top of the glass (when you look down at it) and noplace where it is on the circles. I figured maybe it was the text to curve... so I converted it to text and tried again! Same thing. Anybody got any ideas. I've attached the file (x3).

Steve Clarkson
04-07-2009, 10:20 PM
Tom,

I wanted to make a template like you did, so I could engrave like 8 glasses at a time.....I finally gave up. There is an old post about my trials and tribulations from about a month ago if you search.

What I fianlly ended up doing is engraving them one at a time.....took about 2 minutes each.....which was perfect in that that was how much time it took to prepare the next glass to go in and to clean the last glass that just came out.

As far as lining up your text perfectly......I don't think it can be done from glass to glass, because they are all just a hair different in size......but a hair difference is HUGE when it comes to centering.

So what I did, was to use the red dot pointer and center to center engraving. Also, the only thing I put on the glass was dish soap.....no newspaper or tape......that worked best for me.

How many glasses are you doing?

Good Luck!

Tony Lenkic
04-09-2009, 10:12 AM
Tom,

I just tested your file and it works fine on my laser.
I ran one test with circles included and one without them and both test passed ok.

Now I have question for all.

To run above test I used piece of leftover acrylic that customer supplied to cut some shapes. Back then when I laser cut it the edges turned brownish color. This same effect turned out with engraving. It looks like color fill of some sort and it is very interesting product but question is what kind of acrylic it is and if it is safe to engrave with laser?

Bill Cunningham
04-09-2009, 9:02 PM
If it turned brown, it's probably polycarbonate (Lexan) They say it's safe to laser but clouds of brown smoke when cutting makes ya wanna say Hmmmm

Tony Lenkic
04-10-2009, 11:11 AM
Bill, there was no much of smoke to be concerned about but it did produce more of smell than plexi. Next time I go to big box store I will pick up piece of Lexan to compare.

Thanks.