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Dennis Perry
02-22-2007, 3:24 PM
Well it's almost finished (hope I'm not boring everone with this thread). The piece was originaly drawn with 1,575 parts I reduced it to 1,380 was having problems with assembly. Over the span of the bridge the parts to show the cables was over 200 parts, with the kerf thickness variance lets say .0005" with over 200 of them thats almost 1/8". Well all that's left is the finish, I think I'll let my son do the finishing. He has a mixture of tung oil and poly (I think) that I hear looks great, mirror finish. He did a finish on a project For Foster Farms he said that came out great, it went out before I saw it :(

After assembly flipped over back removed ready for glue up.
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Piece glued up flipped backover and into the vacuum press.
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After being in the press about 16 hours removed from the template. The fun part next removing all the tape :eek:
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After running through the drum sander and ready for the finish, I'll have to get jr. on this.
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I'll update with the finished piece.

Dennis

Belinda Barfield
02-22-2007, 3:45 PM
Dennis,

Absolutely beautiful. Can't wait to see the finished product. I may have missed this in an ealier thread, and I hope you don't mind my asking - is this a commissioned piece, or something you chose to produce on your own? I'm anxious to see the wood tones come through with the finish. You have a great eye. I might be able to attempt something like this, except I'm partially color blind, so my trees would end up looking like mud instead of trees! :D How do you keep all those tiny pieces in order, do you number each piece or somehow identify them on a grid? Hope that's not a really dumb question, this type of work is new to me. I like this forum because no one who knows me is a member, therefore I don't have to suffer the dumb blonde jokes my "friends" are always sharing with me. Well . . . except that sort of lets the cat out of the bag (and proves their point) doesn't it. I'm not really blonde, I'm truly a brunette!

Again, really, really nice work!!

Joe Pelonio
02-22-2007, 4:22 PM
Well it's almost finished (hope I'm not boring everone with this thread).
Dennis
Not at all, please do post the finished pictures. Amazingly nice work!

Dave Fifield
02-22-2007, 5:19 PM
Astounding! Beautiful! Really great work Dennis!! :)

How did you do the fine lines for the drop cables? Are those individual pieces of wood too, or did you laser engrave the cable lines on the surface?

Where are you finding all these great patterns? Are you making them from photos yourself?

Sorry for all the questions, but (as you know) I'm always looking for ways to improve the quality of my marquetry work.....

Cheers,

Dennis Perry
02-22-2007, 7:07 PM
Thanks all

Belinda ya know being vision inpaired may be a plus doing this kinda stuff. Seeing in shades rather than true colors, shades of brown, yellow, reds, purple and black maybe a little greens. Take redheart by itself not a brillant red but next to say maple realy stands out same with other contrasting woods. keeping track of cut parts is always is a big problem. parts are cut upside down with transfer tape on the bottom to reduce flash back but more important knowing which side is up :confused: I work in small areas at a time.

Thanks Joe I have put on a laquer based sanding sealer and sanded, drum sander to 120, orbital to 320 I'll post a photo, color is alittle better but no depth yet. Maybe my son will read this post and come pick it up and put on his finish ;)

Dave the cables are joints. As in all of my other pieces I do my own art either from photos or what ever and vector lines for cutting. The drawings in either AutoCad or CorelDraw is for me the most time consuming part. I have tried to vectorize a bitmap, can't get there from here for me. A year ago or so bought a bitmap to vector program (cutshop) about $1,000 didn't work at all for me. I think it's for the vinyl sign guys , maybe Joe uses it Make somebody a great deal on it.

Dennis

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Rick Maitland
02-22-2007, 9:06 PM
Amazing work Dennis! Are you able to sell your work?

Mike Null
02-22-2007, 9:17 PM
Remarkable! Please tell us all you can about your process.

I think this is a museum piece.

Thanks.

Carol VanArnam
02-22-2007, 9:44 PM
Dennis- I'd like to try doing a something like this. Can you tell me what to look for in a graphic file that makes it work for a project like this? How do I decide what vector files are good, friendly, able to do this kind of project?

Thanks for anything you can tell me....

Dennis Perry-Jr
02-22-2007, 9:56 PM
Looks great Dad! I'll stop by after work tomarrow and pick it up.

Dennis Perry
02-22-2007, 11:01 PM
Thanks again guys

I never gave the size in this thread 36"

Rick thanks I hope so just need a few more Pieces to complete for a show.

Carol I'm not sure about graphics that would be ready to use. Maybe VectorArt.com I attached a .cdr your name for a sign or what ever ready to cut with some simple instruction. It should give some ideas and the process.
This is my next piece only a photo now, if thinking 48" round maybe completed end of April.
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Mike Thanks I'm not sure about a museum piece. Which part of the process the drawing, cutting or building? Or all three :eek: ;)

Thanks again Dennis

Carol VanArnam
02-26-2007, 1:10 AM
Dennis- I can't open the graphic 1.cdr file. I've got corel 12 do you have x3? i would like to try your process but I'm not totally sure what to look for in a graphic. I've got over 2 million graphics so that's not the problem. What do i need to look for in a graphic when I'm considering doing the multi wood technique? Thanks for the tips.... I love your pictures. You do awesome work. I've got a wood shop and I love to make things.....

Dave Fifield
02-26-2007, 6:10 AM
Carol, it's an X3 file. I made a version 12 for you:

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Cheers,

Joe Pelonio
02-26-2007, 8:00 AM
A year ago or so bought a bitmap to vector program (cutshop) about $1,000 didn't work at all for me. I think it's for the vinyl sign guys , maybe Joe uses it Make somebody a great deal on it.

Dennis

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Most of us doing vinyl work have a program that cost a lot more than that which does raster to vector conversion as well as design for ready-to-cut
files. I often use my vinyl program to create files for cutting on the laser because it's a lot faster than using Corel, but this program I use cost $10,000.
There used to be a great program called "Streamline" by Adobe that did a great job tracing but the discontinued it when they added that feature to Illustrator. I haven't heard of Cutshop but it sounds like something that you wouldn't need if you have the tracing feature of Corel X3.

Mark Winlund
02-26-2007, 1:42 PM
There used to be a great program called "Streamline" by Adobe that did a great job tracing but the discontinued it when they added that feature to Illustrator. I haven't heard of Cutshop but it sounds like something that you wouldn't need if you have the tracing feature of Corel X3.

For many years, the converter of choice was the one in Casmate. Casmate folded, and became part of Scanvec-Amiable. The converter became part of FlexiSign Pro (very costly then). Streamline was nowhere as good as Casmate when it came to bitmap conversions. A new program called "Imagaro" came along that was very good... it allowed you to apply different parameters to different parts of a bitmap, and had a very good node editor. (I still use it) The recent improvement in Corel Trace has eliminated most of the differences, and is much lower in cost.

I remember standing in a crowd at one of the conventions and watching Jay Hoffpauer (founder of Xenetech, now gone to the engraving shop in the sky) struggling to make his converter work. The poor guy had 75 people standing crowded around his booth to see this marvel, and he couldn't get it to work. At all.

Mark

Carol VanArnam
02-27-2007, 12:30 AM
Thanks Dennis for sharing your project. I'm going to give it a try....
Thanks Dave for converting the file to corel 12. I appreciate it....