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© 2000 by Ron McIntyre. All Rights Reserved.
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I have always enjoyed Southwest Art and I have used CorelDRAW to put my ideas on paper for others to follow. As this is a practical approach I have not used a lot of bitmap fills or complicated textures. The idea is to give others ideas and to use CorelDRAW in a constructive manner to produce something that can be used in art work.
All of the copper wire and copper tube I used was scrap, but new can be purchased and found from hardware stores and electronics stores. All wire is solid and not stranded wire. I cut the #12 wire 4 inches long and hammered it flat. The more you hammer it, the wider it will become and the longer it will be. Trim it to your desired length because you may want to use 1/4 inch copper tube instead of 3/8 inch copper tube for your arrows. At the end of this article I have included AWG wire size and the drill bit size to use in drilling.
The paper pattern is the same length and width as the finished hammered copper wire and is glued onto the copper. This will give you a perfect pattern to drill with, and your holes will be evenly spaced. I will show three different ways to produce this pattern.
Install a vertical guideline at position Ø as shown in Figure 2. Place a 1/16 inch .0625 circle, fill black, and no outline at Position A. Notice that Relative Position is unchecked and the left object handle is checked. While your circle is selected, go to Position B. Input 3 inches at he horizontal and check your right object handle, click Apply To Duplicate. Now select both circles and go to Blend as in C. Editor's Note: In CorelDRAW 9, you'll find these controls on the Property Bar unless you have customized the Blend Docker back into your Workspace. Enter 18 steps and click Apply. You now have 20 evenly spaced circles measuring from outside to outside is 3 inches long. Go to Arrange | Separate and Ungroup all of your circles to use different colors if you choose. The reason you do not use 20 steps is that you already have 2 selected!
Draw your 1/16 inch .0625 circle the same as in Figure 2 and place anywhere. Go to Position A and notice that Relative Position is unchecked and your left object handle is checked. Read what your Horizontal position is. In this example it reads 2.2529. Disregard the Vertical position. While your circle is selected, click on your right object handle. Do not add 3 inches to the horizontal number. IF you do, your length will be .0625 inches too long. Enter the number as you read in Position A. 2.2529 + 3 = 5.2529. Apply this number as in Position B. Click on Apply To Duplicate. Select both circles and go to Blend 18 steps as shown in C. Click on Apply. You now have 20 circles evenly spaced 3 inches long, outside to outside.
Draw a horizontal line of any length, in this example it is 5.2947 inches long. Next install 2 vertical guidelines, one at Ø, and another at 5.2947: the end of your line. This will give you a visual guide. I did not install a visual horizontal guideline at Ø but it is assumed it is there. Next draw a vertical line .5 inches long. Position your horizontal line as at Position A., your vertical line at Position B. Notice that Relative Position is unchecked and your left object handle is checked in A and the center is checked in B.
Select your vertical .5 inch line and input 5.2947 as in Position C. The center checked. Click Apply To Duplicate. Go to Effects | Blend (or the Interactive Blend for those of you using Draw 9) and enter 12 steps as in D. Click Apply. Select Arrange | Separate and then Ungroup. Delete your first .5 inch vertical line and your last .5 inch vertical line and marquee select both your horizontal line and all of your remaining 12 .5 inch vertical lines as in E. You now have a Line 5.2947 inches long divided in 13 parts. What is good about this is you can now increase your line length and width to any measurement and retain 13 parts as shown in F. and G. With this method you now can divide any line length into any number of parts, 19, 21, 33, 101 etc. The number of steps when Blending will always be 1 less than the parts you want. 101 parts = 100 steps etc.
After making your paper patterns, glue each one to your hammered copper., and then center punch each .0625 dot. Your hammered copper may be longer than 4 inches, but that is ok as you can trim later. Just make sure your paper pattern is centered with your copper. Anything longer than 4 inches can be used for helping in clamping while drilling.
Cut 80 to 100 pins from 16 - 22 ga. wire, each 1.75 inches long. If they are longer than 1.75 that is ok, but they can be no shorter than 1.625 (1 5/8 in.). If they become bent you can straighten them by rolling them between 2 pieces of wood.
Twenty pins 1.75 inches long by 3 inches wide outside to outside before inserting into wooden block.
Before you begin to drill the copper, the most important thing is to clamp the copper secure as it is soft and will tend to lift up when removing your drill. A drill press works best as you can set the depth, but a hand drill will work ok if you mark your drill depth. Any type of clamps will work, but large clamps will interfere with a drill press. The 2 x 4 can be any length as every time you drill one copper length you will have to move the assembly to a different location to drill the next one.
After you have drilled the first assembly you must remove your clamps and blow out all the dust in the holes or the pins that you will insert may be too short after you solder the pins to the hammered copper!
Once you have blown out the dust you do not have to re-install the clamps until you are ready to drill the next assembly.
CD-ROM Labels: Design, Cut, & Install From Glossy Photo Paper · Postcards, QSL Cards, Books and the Duplexing Wizard · Use CorelDRAW to Produce Scrolling Text or Graphics From Screen Recording Software · Creating a Cross Stitch Pattern from an Original Scan · Making Those Fancy License Plates · Creating Stencils To Paint On T-Shirts · Constructing Isometric Grid Paper, A Computer Aid · Making a Full Sized Pattern From a Digital Photo · Fabricate Your Own Copper Arrows, Part I · Fabricate Your Own Copper Arrows, Part II
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