[Idiod]

I am working on a cedar chest for my wife and I want to engrave txt into the lid. As a machinist by trade I usually use a simple font for engraving, but for this project I want to use something a little more fancy. I know there a people who do this sort of thing on here and would appreciate some suggestions.

Thanks

[bostosh]

I would suggest draw what you want, convert to cad, engrave with Vectric

[coherent]

If you are using vectric or artcam any windows font will work. Whats looks best depends on personal preference, your font size, v-bit size, tip angle and total depth (and you can add a flat bottom) so lots of variables. A few tests on scraps should sort it out for you.

[Trotline]

The choice really comes down to what you like, or rather what she likes. BobCAD uses the standard Windows fonts on the computer, and there are thousands of different ones that you can download, generally for free, off the internet. One thing to know is that a lot of the fancier ones were NOT drawn up by CAD folks. There are little areas of them that will need a little cleanup after they're vectorized. My go-to tools for this are Quick Trim, Line Join, and Deform Contour. Since you'll probably not be doing a wall of text, don't let cleanup bother you. It's not difficult or very time consuming to clean up a few words. In general, just find a font you like, size it, vectorize it, clean it up, then V-carve away.

Here's a nice one called Aspire that I've used many times. You can easily spot the issues, where lines cross over other lines, corners have overlap and little triangles, etc. It's really no problem to fix it up for Vcarving, and it looks good, at least to me. Play with the Bold and Italic settings. Some fonts respond to them, others don't, but they can make a difference when available.

Cheers!

Luke

[jrmach]

Trotline,,how the heck are you ?

Fancy Font ? Neurochrome

[Trotline]

Heya, jrmach. I've been lurking for a while. Job keeps me too busy to do much work with my machine, but I'm cutting a few things here and there, and of course, evolving my machine. I've decided to try fitting it out to mill aluminum, which is probably going to take a year or so.

Have Fun!

Luke

[ShortTrack]

^^^ I second jrmach. Been over a year, Trotline...

Back to the OP:
I learned to test on scrap of the same material, same tool and at the same engraving depth. Small text is always tough. Consider the tool angle, too. IMO 30 degree is easier to read than 45 degree when using script/fancy/smaller fonts. But that might just be me.
I use and am very happy with Amana's "In Groove". Always clean cuts. But be careful, as I have had an insert launch from the tool body. Likely my fault - not screwed tight enough. Never did find it!

-ST

[jrmach]

^^^ I second jrmach. Been over a year, Trotline...

Back to the OP:
I learned to test on scrap of the same material, same tool and at the same engraving depth. Small text is always tough. Consider the tool angle, too. IMO 30 degree is easier to read than 45 degree when using script/fancy/smaller fonts. But that might just be me.
I use and am very happy with Amana's "In Groove". Always clean cuts. But be careful, as I have had an insert launch from the tool body. Likely my fault - not screwed tight enough. Never did find it!

-ST

Small size of text is very deceiving of how it actually will look compared to simulation.Smaller tool angle for sure.

[BurrMan]

There are usually 4 kinds of fonts. For cnc, we usually drop 1 of the types off. No fonts are drawn in cad, but in specialty programs.

A single "letter" is a "glyph". Glyphs are defined with points, and the points are connected with either "line" or "curve" entites (depending on the font type)

The defined enties carry "glyph hints" (lol) that are used in scaling methods.

Various areas of TOLERANCE settings can affect glyph hints in ways that need to be addressed in cnc work....

Almost "ALL fonts" will need to be worked, if you want precise, cad data to work with. Most of the anomolies will be able to be bypassed, or not noticed with basic cam amd settings...

The nature of glyphs!

[Idiod]

Appreciate everybody that replied.

[Idiod]

Thought I would post a picture of the finished product. Thought it turned out real nice. I want to thank everyone for their help, but especially Trotline who got me headed in the right direction.

[Trotline]

That drew some serious "Aww!" sounds from my wife. Nice job, and a beautiful sentiment.

Luke