Scroll Saw Village

Welcome to Lesson 7. This time, we're actually putting together what we've learned up to this point to design a scroll saw pattern. We will be designing a simple trinket box. Since the lid will have some nice fretwork, you can also use this box to hold potpourri.

This video demonstrates the entire process. We move fairly fast and don't spend much time teaching you how to use the tools. But everything that I have done in the video (with exception to the Dynamic Offset tool) have already been covered in previous lessons. There is too much information to cover in written instructions, so I've provided a general overview instead. You probably won't understand the written instruction without seeing the video first.

Create Lid and Base
The box lid and base will be made of 1/4" material. First we have to come up with a general shape for our box. First, I create a perfect circle. I duplicate that circle, center the two circles vertically and stack them on top of eachother. I group the circles and duplicate them, then rotate them 90 degrees. I group both of these groups, duplicate, then rotate 45 degrees. Now we have a nice shape for our trinket box. I ungroup all of the groups, then union each of the pieces until we have a single shape. Then using the scaling tools, I lock the aspect ratio and make the box 5.4" tall so it will fit nicely on a 1x6" stock. Duplicate this object so we have two copies (1 lid, 1 base).

Create Box Walls
The box walls will be made of 2 or 3 pieces of 1/2" or 3/4" stock, stacked and glued. The box walls will be inset from the base and lid a bit for a nice shadow line. I duplicate the lid and scale it down to 4.9". I draw a small square and scale it to 1/4". We will use this as a measuring tool. I center the walls and the square vertically, then align it to the top. This will give us a visual indication of what 1/4" measurement. We now need to make the inner walls. I then duplicate the wall again, then use a new tool. Choose Path>Dynamic Offset. Grab the diamond shaped node and drag it down to the bottom of your 1/4" measuring square. It doesn't have to be exact, just get close. Set the square aside to use later. Duplicate the inner wall and set that aside, we'll use that for the Lid Insert. Select the outer wall and the inner wall and choose Difference.

Create Lid Insert
The Lid Insert will fit snuggly inside the box walls. This will be made of 1/4" or 1/8" stock. We'll glue this to the lid so it positions the lid precisely. Since we want to add piercing cuts to the lid, we must make this lid insert into a ring so the fretwork shows through. Repeat the same process as we created the Box Walls. Put the measuring square in place, duplicate the insert, then dynamic offset it until it reaches the bottom of the measuring square. Duplicate and set the inner ring wall to the side for reference for when we add the fretwork. Then select the inner and outer ring and choose Difference.

Create Fretwork for Lid
Now its time to add a bit of fretwork to the lid. But first, we need to know where the safe areas are to place the fretwork. We don't want the Lid Insert or the Box Walls to show through the fretwork. Choose the Lid Insert inner wall and center that in the lid. The Lid Insert inner wall will now be our boundary.

For the fretwork, I decided to use a DingBat font. Find a design that you like. You can find the Dingbat font that I used from DaFont.com. Find the pattern you want, and begin placing the pattern within your boundary. Once everything is in place, remove your boundry reference. Then choose your fretwork patterns and choose Difference.

Finishing Touches
Now that we're done, go through and label all of your pieces and add any necessary instructions. Be sure to sign and date your work so that scrollers can give credit where credit is due. Upload a copy to the Pattern Library to share your pattern with the world! Its a huge thrill when you see your pattern cut by another scroller.

The pattern that was designed in the video demonstration is below.

Travis,
When I do download the dingbat and install it. Do I install it into windows fonts or somewhere else? Or does it not matter?

c_lang wrote:Travis,
When I do download the dingbat and install it. Do I install it into windows fonts or somewhere else? Or does it not matter?

Yup. On Windows machines, just drag your unzipped font into C:\WINDOWS\Fonts. Then relaunch Inkscape and it should be now available.

Travis,

First let me say thank you for the great tutorials. You have shed some much needed light on this program. I do have a question regarding the dynamic offset tool. I an trying to make a pattern for a box out of a very irregular design and am having trouble getting this tool to work. On regular shapes it works just fine, but with what I'm trying to do it appears to increase the size of the stroke considerably. Any pointers or thoughts?

Thanks again,

Don

Travis,

I think I figured it out and it was because I didn't follow all of the instructions and tried to go ahead of the class I used the trace bitmap function which didn't act the way I thought it would. I just traced it according to the class and it worked perfectly. Not sure if you were planning to but maybe you could review the trace bitmap function and the pros and cons of using it.

Thanks again,

Don

Sure. If you'd like to play around with the Trace Bitmap function, check out the Prepare A Pattern For Printing Using Inkscape video. This will cover the Trace Bitmap function. I use it a fair amount. It really only works effectively with black and white images, though. That's probably why you were having some problems.

As far as Dynamic Offset, that is really only used for scaling a shape. When you just duplicate and resize the normal way, this may cause thin areas in your design because resizing doesn't really keep a consistent distance to the edge. But with dynamic offset, you'll notice that it will alter the shape a bit in order to keep the same distance from the edge.

I hope this helps!

Thanks Travis. The funny thing is the image is black and white and I have predominately used this for patterns I've made using inkscape. I'm trying to design some boxes for the first time and was using the process I typically use (trace bitmap) and was stumped on how to get the offset to happen until I saw the video then ran into the problem. Not sure if it was something I did or a quirk in the program but following your method worked like a champ!

One question for you on the dynamic offset, does your method work because you are tracing with a shape. I watched the linked video but am trying to understand what the trace bitmap is creating a path or object?

Thanks again. These videos and tips are really helping to increase my pattern making skills.

Don

Path is a confusing term. Many people will consider this a line drawing or outline. However, path basically refers to an object that has editable nodes. So when you create a square, its simply an object that you can move, but you can't edit individual nodes. But when you convert the square to a path, you can edit the nodes.

The trace bitmap feature will trace an bitmap based on contrast of its surrounding. If you have a line drawing, the trace bitmap feature will trace the outline (outer outline and inner outline). If its a solid black object, it will trace only the outside. So for a line drawing, you can edit the nodes on the inner outline, or the outer outline. If you want a line drawing to be solid so you can use your dynamic offset, try breaking it apart so you get your individual shapes. Then delete the inner shape so you're left with only the outer shape. Then you can duplicate the outer shape, dynamic offset, then take the two objects and do Difference. It's a confusing topic, so I hope I made a little bit of sense.

If you have something specific that you need to accomplish, go ahead and post it. I can either put together a simple video demonstrating how it is done, or give you more specific written instructions.

My computer has windows7 installed and when I try to load dingbats to windows-fonts it states it is not a true font and will not load. Also when I go to windows-fonts there are three dingbats already there, however they do not appear in Inkscape. Any suggestions ? Also let me thank you for the lessons, I never knew how a paint program was of any value until taking the course.

Hmmm....I don't know much about Windows 7. I think the OS assumes we don't want to do some of the stuff we're trying to do. So there may be a bit more "hoop jumping" than it should be. Here's a site on how to install a font on Win 7: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11 ... stall.html

It also may be the font is incompatible with Win. 7


For fonts that don't show up, I guess there's a show/hide feature on Win 7. If the font name is in gray, it means its hidden. If its black, it's shown. Here's a quick tutorial on how to show/hide fonts and even turn off the feature: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/10 ... -hide.html

Hopefully this gets you closer.