For this assignment, I needed to create a 2D drawing of the parts of a model dimetrodon from a woodworking book. Here are the pages I scanned from the book
And here is my Adobe Illustrator drawing:
My process for creating this file was to first place the pdf scans inside my template, then use the curve tool to trace over them on another layer. That way, I was easily able to categorize my work – all the pdfs were on layer 1 and all my drawings were on layer 2. I could also hide layer 1, which got rid of those pesky pdfs when I was trying to orient my drawings to make them fit together.
I didn’t draw the shapes that indicate a view only, so those are not present in the .ai file. The template is 40″x28″, which I learned this week are the dimensions of the laser cutter bed. I selected this large template because I wanted to be able to include group all my pieces together.
The line strokes are not laser-cutter ready; they’re all 0.014″ so I could see them. If I need to cut this design (perhaps for the midterm), I’ll fix them to be 0.001″ for the outer borders and 0.004″ for the inner lines on the spine piece.
There were a couple of challenges with drawing this design, the most prominent of which was just drawing the spine piece (the one with all the ridges). After learning that the laser cutter uses different line strokes to know whether to cut or engrave, I wanted to set up the piece in two blocks: the outer border (cut) and the inner spines (engrave). But there were so many lines that this one piece took me about as long as the others combined. I screwed up my first attempt by drawing each loop one at a time instead, which killed about 45 minutes of effort.
Also, the large body piece is included in the book at a smaller scale from all the other pieces, which are full-size. I didn’t realize this piece was smaller in the book until last night when I was about to upload the scans from the book into this blog post. Then I noticed the different scale. I had to go back and resize the length as well as the holes inside the piece. That was a little frustrating…
I might use this design for the upcoming midterm. I’ll decide once I get a closer look at the assignment.
Here’s my .ai file:
