I’m building some oak garage doors, and I’d like to engrave the house name on them. I’ve never carved before (I will practice on scrap first!!). Any thought on which fonts lend themselves to carving by hand?
Thanks
Col
Thanks
Col
Best font for hand carving letters?
- Thread starter Co1
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Almost anything with a serif. easier to do the "corners " if they have a serif " the little foot" .
Pay attention to kerning.
https://xkcd.com/1015/
Bad kerning drives sign writers, typographers , designers wild...makes our teeth and eyeballs itch.
Pay attention to kerning.
https://xkcd.com/1015/
Bad kerning drives sign writers, typographers , designers wild...makes our teeth and eyeballs itch.
niall Y
Established Member
By its very nature, the Roman font developed from being carved on stone, and lends itself well to being carved in wood. I believe Trajans Column supplied the model for many of the Roman fonts, used today, though by its very nature, it doesn't contain all the letters we use now.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Nice site here. I keep meaning to have a go.
https://www.finewoodworking.com/2006/11/01/the-abcs-of-letter-carving
Roman best and looks classy. Many variations.
https://www.finewoodworking.com/2006/11/01/the-abcs-of-letter-carving
Roman best and looks classy. Many variations.
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Don't know which fonts are better or worse for carving but these video playlist from Chris Pye might help: how to carve Gothic and how to carve Celtic lettering. Ignore the "Won't play" messages and just go to the YouTube website via the link provided on the message screens. (I use Duckduckgo player but it won't play these vids as it excludes there short embedded adverts).
ps..upon reflection, as you are a beginner..Do the lettering on a board and fix the board to the doors.Direct on the the doors is going to be a right S.O.B ( the grain on the doors is unlikely to be helpful ) .Even an experienced carver would rather work on a board than direct onto doors. Your doors ? ..any errors or slip ups could get horribly expensive very fast..Oak is not the best wood to start on, it is nice, but hard, and all oak is not the same. Your tools will need to be kept ultra sharp to stay precise.Jacob will "explain" sharpening to you.
pps ..Eshmiel.. I posted about ytdownloader in one of your other threads.If I were the OP just beginning carving .I'd download those , watch them many times, practice for a year or so minimum, three years is better.Then think about carving directly into oak doors ( the horror, they may even be in situ, vertical ! ), and then do it on a board and fix the board to the doors if it was at all possible.
pps ..Eshmiel.. I posted about ytdownloader in one of your other threads.If I were the OP just beginning carving .I'd download those , watch them many times, practice for a year or so minimum, three years is better.Then think about carving directly into oak doors ( the horror, they may even be in situ, vertical ! ), and then do it on a board and fix the board to the doors if it was at all possible.
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J-G
Established Member
The issue raised about Kerning is valid but the actual word(s) (well letters more correctly) to be carved ought to have a strong influence upon which 'Face' to use - including whether you intend to use Title Case, Upper Case, Small Caps - - - etc.
I would avoid 'Times' - original or 'New' especially if using any lower case letters ( the 'rounded' ends on some letters could cause problems) My 'Go To' font for ledgibility is Zapf Calligraphic.
If you can post the 'name' you wish to use I can better suggest one (or a few) of the 17000+ fonts that I have available
I would avoid 'Times' - original or 'New' especially if using any lower case letters ( the 'rounded' ends on some letters could cause problems) My 'Go To' font for ledgibility is Zapf Calligraphic.
If you can post the 'name' you wish to use I can better suggest one (or a few) of the 17000+ fonts that I have available
I'll bet your font manager / wrangler loves loading 17K fonts when you open it*. I save my RAM for other things, but yes I can see why one might have 17K fonts..I've probably got around that spread over 14 machines. ( easier on the RAM ) But tend to use no more than a hundred regularly.
Unless you've tweaked it to only "load" the one it is displaying.
I tend to create fonts for my uses ..at the moment an "uncial" flavour to them...Maybe that should be Uncial, that is one of those names where one is never sure, many never had an Upper case as such, only decorative, embellished and pictorial...Hmmm.
Unless you've tweaked it to only "load" the one it is displaying.
I tend to create fonts for my uses ..at the moment an "uncial" flavour to them...Maybe that should be Uncial, that is one of those names where one is never sure, many never had an Upper case as such, only decorative, embellished and pictorial...Hmmm.
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J-G
Established Member
I have about 3-400 actually readily available
but 'Photoshop' does take a while to load. Fortunately my main Graphics program is CorelDRAW! and that is quite efficient in that respect.It does take me a while to search for a font that isn't loaded and I'm looking for a particular character.
Bitstream Font Navigator only takes about 3 seconds to open though and searching my whole PC takes less than 20 seconds. I've just checked and the current state is 15620 fonts and 344 'loaded'. Many years ago I made a point of creating a 2Gb partition as Drive 'F' and that's where I store them - they amount to 0.99Gb.
Yes, back in the days when I ran win machines for other than LaserGRBL , I liked Corel software, fast and not too RAM hungry ( and it let the RAM go when you were done ), Whereas photoshop was always a bit of a "make a coffee" an get back to it launcher. Then it started grabbing massive amounts of RAM for itself while it was opening just in case the edits / history needed RAM. I keep my "non everyday" fonts on a separate thumb drive ( duplicated on another and other drives as backups* in case of problems ) and attach when needed and point the font managers at them. All the native font managers on linux are "blink" instant, the only one that can take a few seconds to load is fontmatrix, but that is because it is spooling up flatpak before it gets to display, I just had a look on this box and fontmanager says I have 625 installed all the time. I thought it was less. They are a bit like clamps and gouges, tend to accumulate.
I prefer to keep things on separate drives rather than partitions. But, that does result in having lots of drives.We must have around 100 Terra here and the same off site as backups. We have Drive book cases as well as Book book cases. and NASes ( is that the correct plural for NAS ? ) .. part of this living room looks like a cyber cafe , 7 monitor screens and display graphics tablets plus the TV. Our son has more again upstairs in his studio appt.
I prefer to keep things on separate drives rather than partitions. But, that does result in having lots of drives.We must have around 100 Terra here and the same off site as backups. We have Drive book cases as well as Book book cases. and NASes ( is that the correct plural for NAS ? ) .. part of this living room looks like a cyber cafe , 7 monitor screens and display graphics tablets plus the TV. Our son has more again upstairs in his studio appt.
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AJBaker
Established Member
Are you going to type the text, print it, and stick it to the surface you want to carve? That should deal with any spacing/kerning issues.
Yes, exactly that.
Yes, I should have a better routine for, er, "collecting" such vids.
I'm wary of illegality when it comes to downloading (as well as security issues, although they perhaps wouldn't be a problem with these particular vids.
J-G
Established Member
I've been using CorelDRAW! since V0.8 - but I stopped upgrading at V. X5 it does all I need.
I thought I'd overstepped the mark with my 5 PCs and 6 Monitors
!! No NAS, no Tablets, just HDD & SSD (M2). Using partitions (as well as multiple drives) I only have 4 letters left for assigning on my main PC, but all units have a Drive [F] along with [C], [D] & [P] at least.(Boot, Data & Programs)
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Very unlikely that hand-cut lettering is ever going to be so precise and identifiable that you'd fall foul of copyrights, which anyway apply to just a few fonts, for printing purposes.
it sez ere "Typefaces cannot be copyrighted, but the font software used to display them can be. This distinction is crucial because it separates the visual design of characters (typeface) from the underlying code that instructs computers and printers how to reproduce those characters (fonts)."
it sez ere "Typefaces cannot be copyrighted, but the font software used to display them can be. This distinction is crucial because it separates the visual design of characters (typeface) from the underlying code that instructs computers and printers how to reproduce those characters (fonts)."
Arnold9801
Established Member
I've bed hand carving house signs and commemorative plaques for over 40 years. My technique is to draw it exact in paper and then with carbon paper transfer the lettering.
My best ever tools for carving is a 10mm Marple even edge chisel followed by an 8, 5 & 3mm.
As for text, I find all texts are equal when it comes to difficulty. Just chose the font and size you want, draw it precise on your paper and go from there.
All the best.
