Carving raised letters in Aspire or vcarve pro

[jshoes51]

I'm trying to make a sign with raised letters about 1/4" higher than the background material. The text is on two lines and reads "Ocean Acres". The "O" and the "A" are oversized letters, and the O is superimposed over the A in such a way that the bottom of the oval shaped O creates the crossbar in the A.

When I make a 3d object out of the text, all of the letters stand out the 1/4", but the intersection of the O and the A is getting carved down the 1/4" in the 3d view. If I try to weld the selected vectors, I highlite the A (which is all one vector) and both the inner and outer vectors of the O, but then I keep losing the whole upper part of the A that is within the O.

What am I missing? There must be a way to do this.

Related question: can I do this in vcarve pro? When I highlite the outer border of the sign shape and the letter vectors and do a pocket toolpath, it carves the inner portion of the letter vectors instead of the areas outside the letters.

Thanks

Jim

[khaos]

You should be able to "ADD" them. I dont have the software here so I cant go specifically step by step. But thats the premise.

[bryson]

Joe, You should have no problem doing this in V-Carve or Aspire. You may have an overlapping vector or open vector somewhere.
Bryson

[jshoes51]

Okay, I got a little further in vcarve pro, and when I highlite the letter vectors and the outside border, then order a pocket toolpath, I get a warning that the tool will not fit into the vectors at the machining depth. Probably because the letters that overlap have some very sharp corners. However since the letters are not straight lines, the filet tool will not work to soften the corners to fir the shape of the tool being used. I'd include a copy of the crv file, but it exceeds the allowable size.

[blackhawk]

Jim - Can you just do a print screen snapshot of your vectors in the 2D view and post? Have you converted the O and A from text to curves? If I understand correctly, it sounds like you need to convert to curves and then do some node editing to eliminate the overlapping vectors.