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Phyllis Williams
07-01-2010, 6:33 PM
Hello! i am laser engaving wedding flutes...the bottom stem is wider that the top of the glass...we i am lasering the words get all tight together...so i expanded the wording and only half of the wording is the proper size...the last half goes tight together....any suggestion? Thanks in advance!
Phyllis Williams

OH! i am using a epilog 50 watt mini and center center!

Larry Bratton
07-01-2010, 7:00 PM
with..a rotary attachment?

Phyllis Williams
07-01-2010, 7:22 PM
Hi Larry...yes i am using a Rotary Attachment! :)

Larry Bratton
07-01-2010, 7:37 PM
Phillis:
I don't use my rotary that much, but let's verify you have everything set up right as far as the artwork goes.
1. The width of your page should be the length of your glass (more or less)
2. The height of your page should be the circumference of your glass
3. Fit your text to the height (Y axis) and bring the text to the upper edge of the page oriented vertically.
4. Try running it without using center to center. That should give you a good result.

Phyllis Williams
07-01-2010, 8:00 PM
Thanks Larry,
If i'm not using Center to Center...
the setting you just explained is how i do the set up...
I use Center - Center only because its faster to set up the wording on the glass...the glasses i'm engraving have hearts on the front and i want to make sure i get the names center properly...
i'll go back to my old way of setting up the glasses (no center - center) :cool:
I appreciate your feedback!
Thank You!

Larry Bratton
07-01-2010, 8:10 PM
OK, give that a shot, that should work for you.
I am a little cloudy on what your doing with center to center though. Center to Center is more or less just a methodology for determining a position for the engraving based on setting a new home for the machine. I find it to be useful when I want to put the engraving in a specific place on the piece. I believe I did read somewhere that it would work with the rotary though.

Bob Davis
07-01-2010, 9:50 PM
The centre setting should work fine, and I don't think the page size will have much effect.
Assuming you have the mouth of the flute pointing to the left of the machine, you will need to ensure that the clamp is holding the flute firmly so that there is no slippage. The RHS wheels can usually be located somewhere near the bottom of the bowl (above the stem) in a position where the engraving area is near horizontal.
The text will be distorted if the area to be engraved has a larger or smaller circumference than the point where the driven wheels on the jig make contact.
One or two lines of text can be stretched or compressed as needed, but more than that can start to look a bit weird. The envelope tool in Coreldraw is useful to get a more uniform appearance.
Sometimes the shape of the glass just won't accomodate the jig in this position and it is necessary to have the mouth of the glass pointing to the right, and the rim of the base on the driven wheels. Something heavy like a D-size battery in the glass can help it gain traction.

Hope this helps.

Andrea Weissenseel
07-02-2010, 2:46 AM
Phyllis,

if the engraved text is too tight or expanded, it sounds to me that the circumfence of the glas is not correct. Since you mentioned that the bottom of the glass is wider than the top, make sure you use the top meassure

Andrea

Chuck Stone
07-02-2010, 8:15 AM
Is it possible that you need to stretch/warp parts of the text to
be in a trapezoid/fan shape (reverse of the glass shape) for it to come
out correct? That would be a bit of trial and error, but it would also
cause some parts of the engraving to be heavier than others because
you'd be 'squishing' more pulses into a smaller area. The number of
linear inches of travel is smaller on the thinner parts, but the speed
of rotation and the number of laser pulses would be the same.

Just trying to picture what's happening.. I might be all wet here.

Dan Hintz
07-02-2010, 8:27 AM
Phyllis,

I posted a more detailed description on how to solve this problem in a thread posted around a year ago.

In a nutshell, you need the image to be warped in the same way as the glass. For example, let's assume your glass is 5" in circumference at the bottom and 10" at the top... the top is twice the width of the bottom. Your image should be warped in the same manner.

Say your image is a 2" wide by 3" high rectangle. Using handles and other image editing tools, warp the image so it's 4" wide at the top tapering down to 2" wide at the bottom (still 3" high). It will look funny on the screen, like a funhouse mirror reflection, but it will look appropriate on the glass.

For non-cone objects (like beer bottles that change shape completely), look for the older thread for more detailed instructions.