Question please. I am new to the whole wood working scene. I am looking to do 3D wood letters. I have the file that would give me my front piece and back piece. I was wondering if the program automatically figures out the side dimensions to close my shape in or do I have to program it to do so. If so does anyone know a program that would help me achieve this.
Fusion360 and Sketchup will both get you there, although not quite as automagically as you describe. Explore a few YouTube videos on the “extrude” function in both and I think you will get the idea. You will “offset” the outline of the letter the thickness of your wood, then extrude to the desired thickness of the 3D letter.
Thank you so much. I will start there.
Probably the easiest way would be to make a profile for each of the letters, using the top/bottom piece as a reference and offset the profile to the thickness desired, to whatever thickness you need. In this example I used Fusion 360, but any CAD program should work. You can stack as many inside pieces as needed to make your letter as deep as you need.
You could also cut side panels for each letter that you set perpendicular to the top/bottom piece, but I don’t know of any software that will automate that, and curved letters might be difficult.
Edit: just like cmullins70 said!
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Good Morning, Thank you for replying. I am trying to make something like this. I use to make them out of foam board but looking to use wood for repeat use. The insides are hollow just looking to create a shell that is about 3 foot high and about 6-8 inches in depth and 2 feet wide.Would the offset option still work for this or do I need to go another route.
Doing it as I showed would need a lot of layers. If you are using half inch material, would need 10-14 inside layers.
It might work better for you to cut the side pieces to be perpendicular to the top/bottom. I don’t know of any software that will do it automatically.