Fonts good for welding ?

[Kasey Maxwell]

Hi all, this might sound strange but anyone have a list or just your favorite fonts that work great for welding together then to cut out ? I normally use Arial Black Bold and that works good but more varieties would be swell........

Thanks in advance !

[Ernie Balch]

This might not be what you want but I found it interesting. look up the scrollsawworkshop blog there are a couple of free programs that let you type text and it welds the letters together with a bar. I just cut and paste the result into Corel and laser out the piece. Some of the programs are for desk names others for keychains it might give you some ideas.

ernie

[Craig Matheny]

Ernie get curve works to create all the cuts in the intersections and then use removeUnderlyingDups.gms removes the duplicate lines. The fonts we use are Arial Bold all Caps, ShowCard Gothic all caps and Magneto for the scripts upper lower case. We do custom key chains all day long. Good luck

[Ernie Balch]

Craig, Curve works looks interesting, I remember looking at it back in the days of Corel 8. I have several other programs with most of these features that I routinely use, but it requires me to move from package to package.

Apparently Curve works puts everything into a single program. I will give it a try, I have a large number of logos to cleanup and vectorize this week so the timing is good.

ernie

[Larry Bratton]

Ernie,
Note that Curve works requires Corel Designer also. That's a $1000.00 program!

Craig, Curve works looks interesting, I remember looking at it back in the days of Corel 8. I have several other programs with most of these features that I routinely use, but it requires me to move from package to package.

Apparently Curve works puts everything into a single program. I will give it a try, I have a large number of logos to cleanup and vectorize this week so the timing is good.

ernie

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Kacey and Ernie and anyone else that needs to do this, try this one
http://www.laserjumpstart.com/art-welder/

works as a macro in Corel Draw and a lot less than the above. You can use a lot more fonts. No worries about duplicate lines either.

[Ernie Balch]

I don't have Corel design, maybe thats why I could not get a couple of the features to work in Curve works. In any case I wound up going to current favorite, Aspire 3, for my vectorizing and node editing. I had about a dozen logos to scan and vectorize prior to output as screen printing positives.

I watched the videos on art-welder but I was more interested in the "box it" program. I liked the 3D pieces. Some of those designs make my head hurt to think about doing the layout.

ernie

[Mike Null]

I must be missing something. It seems to me that all this can be done in CorelDraw.

[Larry Bratton]

I must be missing something. It seems to me that all this can be done in CorelDraw.

It can. I make wood monograms, which require a good bit of manipulation and welding. If I need to thicken the lines up I convert to curves and add an outline with the Contour tool. I use Commercial Script BT for some. Just for plain cut flat letters I normally use Arial Bold.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Hey Mike,
Yes you can but if you are doing lots of different text/names with the ability to do many different fonts at the press of a few keys, is much easier than trying to repeat a certain format and do "What ifs". Like typing a name once and having several different versions in a matter of seconds instead of minutes or longer. Time is money and one or a few fonts do not fit every occasion. Some times Macros are worth it and sometimes their not. Doe anyone feel like a nut now!!!

[Steven Cox]

I must be missing something. It seems to me that all this can be done in CorelDraw.

I agree with Mike but I'll add this if you've got a font (or fonts) that you like but it needs to be thicker, then a little time spent of creating creating a new font based on the original will be worth the effort. There's a few good tutorials out there for creating TTF fonts and from memory there's even a help topic on Font Creation in Corel's help files. The advantage is once you have it, it's ready to use just type & weld!. Granted it takes a bit of time to create fonts but if you are using it all the time, then the time invested should be worth it.

Yes, time is money, but all too often we tend to waste time looking for so called alternate solutions and or trying to learn new software when the answer is right there.

[Craig Matheny]

Ernie,
Note that Curve works requires Corel Designer also. That's a $1000.00 program!

Larry I am not sure what you are talking about but I run curve works macros all day long on x5 maybe a different curve works?

[Craig Matheny]

Kacey and Ernie and anyone else that needs to do this, try this one
http://www.laserjumpstart.com/art-welder/

works as a macro in Corel Draw and a lot less than the above. You can use a lot more fonts. No worries about duplicate lines either.

Mike I own Art Welder love it for certain things but when welding letters it drop off the inner lines by using curve works you locate and cuAttachment 228643t all intersections and then run remove duplicates (free macro) delete the line you do not want change the others to different color done.curve works - artwelder.cdr

[Steven Cox]

@ Craig

Again why can't you do this in Corel ??? Type the text, Choose/Change the font. Select the Shape Tool & Adjust the Kerning, then select the Weld tool & click on the text and you are done. Or am I and others missing something???

Corel_Weld_Text.cdr

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

To answer Kasey's original question, Cooper works, as well as several from the Sign DNA Font Foundry.