Engraving and cutting questions

[minorcustomcrafts]

I have some plastic I want to engrave on and then cut a shape around the engraving. I have not made the file yet....but i want to engrave something like "on this day I married my friend", list the names and day and then cut a silhouette of a bride and groom around it.

What is the best way to do this?

Do you just hit the "cut" button and it engraves instead?

Do you mirror or anything or the engraving is on the top?

TIA for any tips.

[kim]

First of all, you need the engraving tool.

You will just do your file like you are cutting. It's just that the engraving tool engraves rather than cuts. So there is no reversing your image/words.

I don't know what kind of plastic you are using, but I am assuming that it is thin enough to be cut. If it can be cut, you will use a blade. I know on some metal, you just engrave several times and the engraver will eventually "cut" the metal. sorry, I can't help you too much on that area since I have only engraved and not cut metal/plastic.

[GliderGal]

I'm new to the Cougar so I'm not sure this applies - with other cutters, the blade offset would be changed to 0 when using a straight tool (like an embossing/engraving tip or pen). After installing the blade holder & ready to cut, the offset would be changed back to what it was.

[Tyler]

I have done it before - it is pretty easy.

For MTC:
Have the text and the heart on 2 separate layers. With both the text and the writing visible, do the engraving first with the engraving tool - set the offset to 0 and the overcut to 0 as well if that is possible. Now, without moving to a different origin, change the engraving tool out for a blade holder. This will be the tricky part since you can't really do a test cut to check your settings. If you have cut the material before, you should have an idea of the blade height, force, etc. Go back to your program, hide the text layer so just the heart layer is showing. Add the blade offset back as well as the overcut. Cut out the heart. and that's it.

The reason you have both the heart and the text visible when engraving is because when cutting knife point, the blade starts at the bottom right of your image (portrait view). If you make the heart invisible, then there is a new bottom right position. Since you will be cutting the heart out eventually, it does not matter if you engrave in that area first.

For SignCut:
Pretty much the same as above, but you don't have to engrave the heart too - just make sure that you have the optimized/whole area button toggled (learn/signcut_manual/lessons/The_Important_Icons_in_SignCut.html). Engrave just the text with the engraving tool (no blade offset or overcut), switch so the heart is visible and text is invisible and then cut out the heart with the blade.

[minorcustomcrafts]

Thanks Tyler, now i know why when I tried to use a pen and then cut it did not line up. So I was worried about this, since it is the same concept.

[Elizabeth]

If you use the WYSISYG option in MTC, you set the laser at the corner of your paper. I use this option rather than knife point when doing "write and cut", to eliminate the bounding box issue that arises with Knife Point cutting. It seems that this option would work with engraving also, if for some reason you didn't want to engrave the outside shape.