ACM Is a versatile material, hardy and tough, but the file setup doesn’t have to be!
The easiest way to setup a file from the start is to imagine that where you place the lines for the folds, that will represent your finished face size.
Lets start with a simple 1000mm x 1000mm Panel with a 50mm Return.
First you would draw your 1000x1000mm square, then add the returns to the exterior of this, with the addtion of the panel thickness (3mm) to compensate for what you will loose once folded. It’ll look something like below.
From here we will simply add some straight lines to indicate where we will V-groove the panel
These lines should overlap the exterior cut line by about 6mm to allow for the V-groove tool to go all the way to the edge.
This will give us a finished internal size of 994×994 (minus the material thickness on each fold 3mm + 3mm). So if you were going to have this mount to a frame, you will need to accomodate for the material thickness (3mm) + any room you’d like to leave for glues or tapes. For example if your frame was 1000×1000, you’d need to set your initial square to 1006×1006 to fit to the same size as the frame exactly, realistically a size of 1008×1008 (1mm each side) will give some room for any manufacturing tolerances in the frame and some adhesive.
Moving on to getting this quoted up, we’ll export this as a PDF, DXF or EPS, doesn’t matter which. You can download this file here
Once you’ve selected your file, hit next to progress to the next stage
Here we can see the file is to the correct scale, and looks correct. We are going to select Cutting – Black stroke and our V-Groove layer will be the blue stroke. We are going to set that to an arbitrary value of 2.5mm, to indicate we would like this V-grooved. Our router operator will take care of this and will get you a perfect groove.
Choosing our material, you can scroll down the list of available ACM options, (All standard colours are available, please ring prior to placing an order and we can assist) Choosing an option like ACM – Gloss White, will mean the face of your panel will be gloss white, and so forth for the other options. Typically the Gloss White and Gloss Black options are the standard Gloss/ Matte on either side options, vice versa for the Matte Colours, Primer / White is listed separetly when the rear colour is not of importance.
Using our overall measurements in the preview, this particular job will fit on a 1220×1220 sheet, and we’d like a gloss white face. Hitting Next will bring up your preview and pricing, add it to the cart to get a complete total including our basic setup charges.
