How To Accurately Design Leather Dies?

[bylinesupplyco]

I recently purchased a Harbor Freight shop press into a leather clicker by having someone weld cold rolled steel plates to the jack press bar and the base bar.

Excited to use it once I get dies made.

What is the easiest way to go about designing the dies with the exact sizing specifications?

I have Illustrator experience, however it is difficult to set the exact length of a line in inches, along with the exact curve of rounded corners on designs.

The die company I am going through is requesting an illustrator file.

Help please!

[King's X]

Poster board, ruler and a pen. I do several mock up before I sent it off to the maker. Good luck and welcome to the clicker family.

[veedub3]

Have you checked out Youtube? They have several videos on how to draw a straight line and how to draw curves in Illustrator, and many, many more helpful videos on Illustrator.

Sorry I can't help ya, my software of choice is CorelDraw.

Karina

[bylinesupplyco]

I know how to draw in illustrator, my question is more to geared toward how to set the exact length in inches for the curves and lines i draw.

[JLSleather]

That gal at texas custom dies says they'll use an .ai, .dwg, .dxf, .pdf and a couple others. FWIW

[SteelheadFineGoods]

Texas Custom Dies also accepts thick card stock paper cut outs of your shape and they can create a very accurate die from that.

[King's X]

Cut Rite Dies and Texas Custom Dies both will accept poster board templates.

[DavidL]

in illustrator I click and a box will come out asking for the length of the line, from there i type in "10 cm" and it will change that to pixels or whatever measurement is default. texas custom dies automatically creates curved edges, unless told otherwise.

[Art]

I'm afraid I am way old school on this subject. Make your patterns out of posterboard. It is easy to correct and adjust with scissors and tape. If your die-maker can't take patterns on posterboard, find another die-maker. I really want the experience of an old-school die-maker to make-up what I need, not necessarily a machine. If you send a real die-maker something whacky you're going to get a phone call. If you send something whacky to a computerized shop, you are going to get something whacky back.

Heather at Texas Custom Dies can help with anything die wise, and the dies are heavy and well made.

Art

[JLSleather]

texas custom dies automatically creates curved edges, unless told otherwise.

What does this mean? What curved edges?