Other Celtic Knotwork anybody?

[Stuart Freeman]

So. I'm gonna use this as a brief introduction...

My name is Stuart Freeman and I'm a 60 year old retired auto mechanic and now selling auto parts for a living. I've been drawing knotwork (by hand) since the early 90's and several years ago discovered some software to draw it digitally. I took a year of manufacturing technology at a Junior Collage in 2009 where I was introduced to Solidworks and MasterCam, and was promptly hooked by the possibilities.

These days I'm creating things to be 3D printed, and a great deal of my work uses Celtic Knotwork. I have literally hundreds of patterns and I've decided to share some of them here on this site.

These knots are free to download and use as you see fit. I only ask that you give me a mention in anything you create and give me a shout out, to show me what you made.

I've spent a great deal of time trying to make these as clean as possible, and I think they should work for just about any CNC machine. There are only straight lines and regular curves, so the G-code should be pretty straight forward.

All comments are welcome...

 

[omng945]

Great job!

 

[Stuart Freeman]

Thank you!

 

[Mike Scott]

these look great! Unfortunately, I can't speak for anything except laser cutting in stainless, but if I were to run this, every unconnected segment would become a separate piece. If any of those pieces are under about 3" in the X direction, they would fall through the cutting table, into the chip bin, unless it was tabbed.. resulting in a marred piece.

If I were to use one, I'd adapt it. I'd have to adjust each intersection in the design to something like this, to make it all come out as a single piece.

Sorry it's so rough looking, but it's just a quick paint sketch. Usually, I'd make it a pointed notch on one edge, and then a small notch on the other edge. it's hard to see in my drawing, but it would typically had the longer notch on opposite corners, rather than the same side. The leftover "bridge" connecting the material would be about 1/8" wide, so the separation created by the notches would seem larger.

If the intersecting pieces were supposed to be tubes, I'd make curved notches, sort of replicating the effects of shadows of one piece travelling over the other. If they're flat, I make the notches straight, similar to what THAT shadow might be.

 

[SignTorch]

since these are stencil designs, you can cut the negative as one-piece by offsetting the outline to the outside and/or by enclosing it in another shape



and an easy way to cut the positive (without editing every gap) is just offset to the outside 1/2 the gap width (plus a little) to eliminate the gap

 

[Stuart Freeman]

I understand your problem. Basically, your medium is 2 dimensional, and I designed these for 3D printing. With 2D you end up with a lot of little unconnected pieces.
While the solution you suggest works, you loose the over/under effect of the design. I wish I had a better idea, but at the moment I don't. Though, if your interested, all of my designs start with a 2 color bitmap and the software I'm using has over 70 different styles of knots. If you'd like to play with it, it's now a free download (I had to pay for it) and you should be able to find it here: http://www.goldcupdesign.co.uk/

 

[Mike Scott]

SignTorch great ideas, I should've thought of that! Stuart thanks!

 

[Randee S.]

This is great! You are quite talented!

 

[Stuart Freeman]

Thank you all.

 

[lonstarle]

Will do and thanak you sir.