CNC Plasma Cut Vintage Motorcycles

[Tmate]

Laser is capable of packing more detail into a smaller area than plasma:

[DR]

Great work. I would definitely be interested in a description of your workflow regarding the software to create these works of art. Please!!!!!!!

In my business we received architectural sketches for both turned and milled shapes. We tried the tedious method fitting curves and lines to the sketches using using graphic software like Corel. Almost more often than not customers would say the result wasn't quite what they had in mind. The poor results were usually due to the poor quality sketches. Things like turned finials where the sketches were not symmetrical side to side.

We ended up buying Cutting Shop from Arbor Image Company. It's raster to vector conversion software. There's lots of raster to vector software out there, some free, some for big dollars. Cutting Shop seemed the best for it's price range 20 years ago. At least with the software we could show the result is as good as it could be given the quality of the sketch. No matter what software is used there are always some clean up and corrections needed.

Cutting Shop works well from photos too. But the photo has to be with a non-detailed background.


ON EDIT: I just Googled on the Cutting Shop software I use. What came up was something from Google saying the business was "permanently closed". Luckily they aren't closed. They moved to a new location and have been unable get Google to remove the closed notice.

[Tmate]

In my business we received architectural sketches for both turned and milled shapes. We tried the tedious method fitting curves and lines to the sketches using using graphic software like Corel. Almost more often than not customers would say the result wasn't quite what they had in mind. The poor results were usually due to the poor quality sketches. Things like turned finials where the sketches were not symmetrical side to side.

We ended up buying Cutting Shop from Arbor Image Company. It's raster to vector conversion software. There's lots of raster to vector software out there, some free, some for big dollars. Cutting Shop seemed the best for it's price range 20 years ago. At least with the software we could show the result is as good as it could be given the quality of the sketch. No matter what software is used there are always some clean up and corrections needed.

Cutting Shop works well from photos too. But the photo has to be with a non-detailed background.

In CNC plasma or laser cutting something like these motorcycles, for example, it is necessary to move some components around or modify them to ensure an adequate distance between lines and shapes. If the tracing was an exact match with a photograph, for instance, some parts would fall out or overlap each other. An exact overlay of the lines in a photo or drawing as in an auto-trace function would be fairly simple. Moving and modifying lines and shapes, or selectively eliminating them as necessary is pretty much a judgment call, and I believe, the hard part.

A photograph contains far more detail than a corresponding plasma-cut piece or even a laser-cut piece. Subjectivity is involved in deciding what detail can be left out with the least detriment to the final product. I'm not sure that a software package can accomplish that. Of course, I could be mistaken about that.

See below:

[DR]

In CNC plasma or laser cutting something like these motorcycles, for example, it is necessary to move some components around or modify them to ensure an adequate distance between lines and shapes. If the tracing was an exact match with a photograph, for instance, some parts would fall out or overlap each other. An exact overlay of the lines in a photo or drawing as in an auto-trace function would be fairly simple. Moving and modifying lines and shapes, or selectively eliminating them as necessary is pretty much a judgment call, and I believe, the hard part.

A photograph contains far more detail than a corresponding plasma-cut piece or even a laser-cut piece. Subjectivity is involved in deciding what detail can be left out with the least detriment to the final product. I'm not sure that a software package can accomplish that. Of course, I could be mistaken about that.

Notice that I said "No matter what software is used there are always some clean up and corrections needed". It's rare that a raster to vector conversion doesn't need clean up, sometimes substantial clean up as with photos.

In my experience graphic software gives DXF's with thousands of short line segments rather than arcs and lines. Short line segments run slower on some CNC controls as opposed to an arc command representing the same contour. Also much easier to adjust position of an arc segment than many short lines.

My clean up is done in a CAD program which happens to very good for editing DXF files. I don't want to minimize the clean up effort, it can take many hours sometimes. But, the software I use has always been a good starting point for me.

Some times people will ask what software is best. IMO. the software you're familiar with is best. And,, I have a combination that works well for me.

[Doozer]

My buddy Jonathan built a motorcycle frame out of steel sheet.
He cut the halves out with a saber saw and a thin wheel grinder.
I saw the thread title and I thought that is what I was going to see.
Instead I see Christmas decorations. Jeezzz.

--D

[Tmate]

My buddy Jonathan built a motorcycle frame out of steel sheet.
He cut the halves out with a saber saw and a thin wheel grinder.
I saw the thread title and I thought that is what I was going to see.
Instead I see Christmas decorations. Jeezzz.

--D

Great idea! Thanks for the suggestion.

[Noitoen]

My buddy Jonathan built a motorcycle frame out of steel sheet.
He cut the halves out with a saber saw and a thin wheel grinder.
I saw the thread title and I thought that is what I was going to see.
Instead I see Christmas decorations. Jeezzz.

--D

It's just Doozer doing some doozing :P I think he is too young to understand that people can have fun with whatever they like. Can't put a price tag on someones personal satisfaction at their hobby.

[Doozer]

I was ball busting.
Be light and merry.

-D