Just plain help!

[torpedochief]

I now have myself a photo etch machine. I want to make oars, harpoons, ratlines, deadeyes blubber hooks and any numer of whale ship gear. Of course items for other ships as well.  I downloaded DraftSight, and they lost me at X  Y.  Is there a simple free program I can use?

 

Much thanks.

 

Chief  

[Don9of11]

You could try SketchUp, it's free and not to difficult to learn.

[molasses]

I've been pleased with Serif DrawPlus Starter. It's a vectored drawing program rather than a drafting program which makes it easy to trace over an imported image then reduce the tracing to the size you need. I think it will suit your needs perfectly, I've been strongly considering a photo-etch kit and intend to use DrawPlus for the masks needed.

[jburchfield1@wowway.com]

Can somebody put up a link to what kind of machine you are talking about?

 

I thought this was done just using chemicals/masking on brass sheets?

 

Is it some kind of laser or what?

[molasses]

The kit I'm looking at is from Micro-Mark. It uses masks that can be printed on most computer printers and chemicals in the kit remove the un-masked metal.

 

http://www.micromark.com/micro-mark-pro-etch-photo-etch-system,8346.html

 

There's a link to how it works there. I don't know if Chief has this kit but it's the only one I've found.

Edited July 30, 2014 by DFellingham

[jburchfield1@wowway.com]

Thanks for the link.

 

That's how I thought it was done but wasn't sure.